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LOTUS BUDS

UNIV. OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES

The Great Rock. (PW 338.)

LOTUS BUDS

AMY WILSON-CARMICHAEL

Kesw'ick Mitsionary C.E.ZM.S.

AUTHOR OF

"THINGS AS THEY ARE"; "OVERWEIGHTS OF JOY";
"THE BEGINNING OF A STORY," ETC.

WITH FIFTY HALF-TONE ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM PHOTOS SPECIALLY TAKEN FOR THIS WORK

MORGAN AND SCOTT LD.

12 PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS
LONDON MCMXH

, OF PATTI? TT

«Y. r,os AV

FIRST EDITION, Quarto (Fifty Photogravure

Illustration*) 2,000 Nov., 1909

EDITION DE LUXE (Fifty Photogravures on

Japon Vellum) ... I . 250 Nov., 1909

OCTAVO EDITION (Fifty Half-tone Engravings) 5,250 July, 1912

TO THOSS WHO CARE

DOHXAVUR, TlNNHVBLLY DISTRICT,
SOUTH INDIA

Christmas, 1909.

2126134

Each for himself, we live our lives apart,
Heirs of an age that turns us all to stone ;

Yet ever Nature, thrust from out the heart,
Comes back to claim her own.

Still we have something left of that fair seed

God gave for birthright ; still the sound of tears
Hurts us, and children in their helpless need
Still call to listening ears.

OWEN SEAMAN.
From "In a Good Cause."

FOREWORD

TO THE

PRESENT EDITION

JX THEN first " Things as they are" trod the
untrodden way, it walked as a small
child 'walks when for the first time it ventures
forth upon young, uncertamfeet. It has to walk ;
it does not know why : it only knows there is no
choice about it. But there is an eager looking
for an outstretched hand, and an instant grate-
fulness always, for even a finger. A whole hand%
given without reserve is something never forgotten.

It was only a child after all, and it had not
anticipated having to Jind its way alone among
strangers. It had thought of nothing further than
a very short walk among familiar faces. If it
had understood beforehand how far it would have

Vll

to walk, I doubt if it would have had the courage
to start ; for it was not naturally brave. But
once on its way it could not turn back; and
thanks to those kindly outstretched hands ^ it grew
a little less afraid^ and it went on.

Then another small wayfarer followed. It
also was very easily discouraged ; an unfriendly
push would have knocked it over at once. But
nobody seemed to want to push so unpretentious a
thing^ so it gained courage and went on.

And now a more grown-up looking traveller
(though indeed its looks belie it) has started on
its way ; more diffident^ if the truth must be told^
than even its predecessors. For it thought within
itself— Perhaps there will be no welcoming hands
held out this time ; hands may grow tired of such
kind offices. But it has not been so. And now

v4/

the sense of gratefulness cannot longer be repressed.

All of which means that I want to thank
sincerely those kings of the Book World— Reviewers
— and those dwellers in that world who are my

viil

Readers^ for their insight and the sympathy to
which I owe so much.

Once I read of a soldier who wrote a letter
home from the midst of a battle , on a crumpled
piece of paper laid upon a cannon ball. His
home people he knew would overlook the appear-
ance of the paper and the lack of various things
expected in a letter written in a quiet room upon
a study table. And he knew he could trust them
not to bring too fine a criticism to bear upon the
unstudied words hot from the battle s heart.

I have thought sometimes that these books were
not unlike that soldier s letter ; and those who read
them seem to me very like his home people^ for
they have been so generous in the kindness of their
welcome.

Amy Wilson- Carmichael.

Dohnavur,

Tinnevelly District
S. India.

Feb. ig^ igi2.

THE photographs (except two) were taken by Mr. Penn,
of Ootacamund, whose work is known to all who care
to possess good photographs of the South Indian hills.
The babies were a new experience to him, and something of
a trial, 1 fear, after the mountains, which can be trusted to
sit still.

The book has been written for lovers of children. Those
who find such young life tiresome will find the story dull,
and the kindest thing it can ask of them is not to read it
at all.

CONTENTS

rnAPTTB PAGB

I. LOTUS BUDS ...... 1

II. OPPOSITES , . . . . . 5

III. THE SCAMP . . . . .15

IV. THE PHOTOGRAPHS ..... 23
V. TABA AND EVU . ..... 31

VT. PRINCIPALITIES, POWERS, RULERS . . 41

VII. HOW THE CHILDREN COME . . . .51

VIII. OTHERS ...... 61

IX. OLD DEVAI . . . . . .67

X. FAILURES? ...... 75

xi. GOD HEARD: GOD ANSWERED . . .85

XII. TO WHAT PURPOSE? .... 95

XIII. A STORY OF COMFORT ..... 103

XIV. PICKLES AND PUCK .... 113
XV. THE HOWLER ...... 121

XVI. THE NEYOOR NURSERY .... 129

XVII. IN THE COMPOUND AND NEAR IT . . 141

XVIII. FROM THE TEMPLE OF THE ROCK . . 153

XIX. YOSEPU ....... 159

XX. THB MENAGERIE . ... 169

xiii

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

XXI. MORE ANIMALS . . . . .183

XXII. THE PARROT HOUSE . . , . 191

XXIII. THE BEAR GARDEN ..... 201

XXIV. THE ACCALS ..... 213
XXV. THE LITTLE ACCALS . . . . . 227

XXVI. THE GLORY OF THE USUAL . . . 235

XXVII. THE SECRET TRAFFIC. .... 245

XXVIII. BLUE BOOK EVIDENCE .... 253

XXIX. "VERY COMMON IN THOSE PARTS". . . 261

XXX. ON THE SIDE OF THE OPPRESSORS THERE WAS

POWER. ..... 269

XXXI. AND THERE WAS NONE TO SAVE »•• . . 279

XXXII. THE POWER BEHIND THE WORK ., d . 291

XXXIII. IF THIS WERE ALL ..... 301

XXXIV. "TO CONTINUE THE SUCCESSION" . . 309
XXXV. WHAT IF SHE MISSES HER CHANCE ? . .321

XXXVI. "THY SWEET ORIGINAL JOY" 331

XIV

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

THE GREAT ROCK ", • . • . Frontispiece

LOTUS FLOWERS . . ... . 3

"GOD'S FIRE" . . . . . . .8

" AIYO ! DID YOU THINK I WOULD HAVE DONE IT ? " . 12

CHELLALU WATCHING THE PICTURE-CATCHER . . 18

"OH, IT'S A JOKE!" ..... 20

" THAT THING AGAIN ! " . . . . ..25

PYARIE AND VINEETHA . . . . 26

" DISGUSTING ! " . . . . . . .28

" LOOK AT THE POSE ! " . . . . . 30

TARA ........ 33

STURDY AND STOLID, AND LITTLE VEERA . . 63

PEBBLES ........ 66

LATHA (FIREFLY) BLOWING BUBBLES ... 72

SEELA, MALA, AND NULLINIE ..... 105

THE COTTAGE NUESERY ..... 108

"PICKLES" AND HER FRIENDS .... 115

THE DOHNAVUR COUNTRY IN FLOOD . . . 124

PAKIUM AND NAVBENA. ..... 126

ON THE ROAD TO NEYOOR . . . . .131

ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF NAGERCOIL .... 132

THE NEYOOR NURSERY ^ 136

THE OLD NURSERY (THE " ROOM OF JOY ") . . .143

Illustrations

PAGE

THE COURTYARD . . . . , .144

A COMING-DAY PBAST ..... 146

THE RED LAKE ........ 148

AT THE DOOR OP THE TEMPLE . . . .150

THE WATER CARRIERS ...... 161

THE BELOVED TINGALU . . . . .164

TWO VIEWS OP LIFE ...... 171

MORE ANIMALS: DEPRESSED .... 185

TUBBING ........ 188

RED LAKE, AND HILL AS SEEN FROM THE TARAHA NURSERY 193
CHILDREN WADING . . . . . .196

CHILDREN WADING . . . . . .197

ESLI, AND LITTLE KOHILA . . . . .198

PREETHA AWARE OP A FOE ..... 200

JULLANIE AMONG THE GRASSES .... 203

ARULAI AND RUKMA, WITH NAVEENA . . . 210

PONNAMAL, PREETHA, AND TARA .... 215

SELLAMUTTU AND SUSEELA ..... 216

SUHINIE, AND HER BABY, SUNUNDA . . . 218
THREE CONVERT WORKERS : SUNDOSHIE, SUHINIE, AND

JEYANIE ....... 220

SEWING-CLASS IN THE COURTYARD . . . 222

THREE LITTLE ACCALS ...... 229

PREENA AND PREEYA . •• . . . . 230

AFTER HER BOTTLE ...... 237

NORTH LAKE AND HILLS , 238

FROM THE ROCK, DOHNAVUR ..... 338

THE PLACE OF BAPTISM . . . 340

XVI

CHAPTER I

Lotus Buds

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LOTUS BUDS

CHAPTER I

Lotus Buds

N'EAB an ancient temple in Southern India is a large
calm, beautiful pool, enclosed by stone walls, broken
here and there by wide spaces fitted with steps lead-
ing down to the water's edge ; and almost within reach of the
hand of one standing on the lowest step are pink Lotus lilies
floating serenely on the quiet water or standing up from it
in a certain proud loveliness all their own.

We were travelling to the neighbouring town when we
came upon this pool. We could not pass it with only a glance,
so we stopped our bullock-carts and unpacked ourselves —
we were four or five to a cart — and we climbed down the
broken, time-worn steps and gazed and gazed till the beauty
entered into us.

Who can describe that harmony of colour, a Lotus-pool
in blossom in clear shining after rain ! The grey old walls,
the brown water, the dark green of the Lotus leaves, the
delicate pink of the flowers ; overhead, infinite crystalline
blue ; and beyond the old walls, palms.

With us was a young Indian friend. " I will gather
some of the lilies for you," he said, with the quick Indian
desire to give pleasure ; but some one interposed : " They must
not be gathered by us. The pool belongs to the Temple."

It was as if a stone had been flung straight at a mirror.
There was a sense of crash and the shattering of some bright

Lotus Buds

image. The Lotus-pool was a Temple pool ; its flowers are
Temple flowers. The little buds that float and open on the
water, lifting young innocent faces up to the light as it
smiles down upon them and fills them through with almost
a tremor of joyousness, these Lotus buds are sacred things—
sacred to whom?

For a single moment that thought had its way, but only
for a moment. It flashed and was gone, for the thought was
a false thought : it could not stand against this — " All souls
are Mine."

All souls are His, all flowers. An alien power has possessed
them, counted them his for so many generations, that we have
almost acquiesced in the shameful confiscation. But neither
souls nor flowers are his who did not make them. They were
never truly his. They belong to the Lord of all the earth, the
Creator, the Redeemer. The little Lotus buds are His — His
and not another's. The children of the temples of South
India are His — His and not another's.

So now we go forth with the Owner Himself to claim His
own possession. There is hope in the thought, and confidence
and the purest inspiration. And, stirred to the very depths,
as we are and must be many a time when we see the tender
Lotus buds gathered by a hand that has no right to them,
and crushed underfoot ; bewildered and sore troubled, as
the heart cannot help being sometimes, when the mystery of
the apparent victory of evil over good is overwhelming :
even so there will be always a hush, a rest, a repose of spirit,
as we stand by the Lotus-pools of life and seek in His Name
to gather His flowers.

CHAPTER II

Opposites

CHAPTER II

Opposites

BALA is nearly four. There are so many much younger
things in the nursery, that Bala feels almost grown
up : four will be quite grown up ; it will be nice to
be four. Bala takes life seriously, she has always done so ;
she thinks it would be monotonous to have too many
frivolous babies. But Bala's eyes can sparkle as no other
eyes ever do ; and her mirth is something by itself, like a
little hidden fountain in the heart of a wood, with the
sweetness of surprise in it and very pure delight.

When Bala came to us first she was between one and
two, an age when most babies have a good deal to say.
Bala said nothing. She was like a book with all its leaves
uncut ; and some who saw her, forgetting that uncut books
are sometimes interesting, concluded she was dull. " Quite
a prosaic child," they said ; but Bala did not care. There
are some babies, like some grown-up people, who show all
they have to show upon first acquaintance and to all.
Others cover the depths within, and open only to their own.
Bala is one of these ; and even with her own she has seasons
of reserve.

Her first remark, however, shown rather than said, was
not romantic. She was too old for a bottle, and she seemed

Opposites

to teel sore over this. But she noted the time the infants
were fed, and followed the nurses about while they were
preparing the meal; and when they sat down to give it,
each to her respective baby, Bala would choose the one of
most uncertain appetite, and sit down beside it and wait.
There was an expression on her face at such times which
suggested a hymn, set it humming in one's head in fact,
in spite of all efforts to escape it. More than once we have
caught ourselves singing it, and pulled up sharply : " Even
me ! Even me ! Let some droppings fall on me."

Most of our family remind us very early that they trace
their descent to the mother of us all. Bala, on the contrary,
was good: so we almost forgot she was human, and began
to expect too much of her ; but she got tired of this after
a while, and one day suddenly sinned. The surprise acted
like "hypo," and fixed the photograph.

The place was the old nursery, which has one uncomfortably
dark corner in it. Something had offended Bala ; she marched
straight into that corner and stamped. We can see her —
poor little girl — as she rumpled her curls with both her
hands, and flashed on the world a withering glance. " Scorn
to be scorned by those I scorn" was written large all over
the indignant little face.

After this shock we were prepared for anything, but
nothing special happened ; only when the demands made upon
her are unreasonable, then Bala retires into herself and
turns upon all foolish insistence a face that is a blank. If
this point is passed, the dark eyes can flash- But such
revealings are rare.

When Bala was something under three, she was very
tender-hearted. One evening, after the first rains had flooded
the pools and revived the mosquitoes, the nursery wall was
the scene of many executions; and Bala could not bear it.
"Sittie, don't kill the poor puchies!" she said pitifully;

"God's Fire."

Taken on the bank of the Red Lake, near Dohnavur.

God's Fire

and Sittie, much touched, stopped to comfort and explain.
The other babies were delighting in the slaughter, pointing
out with glee each detested " puchie " ; but Bala is not like the
other babies. Later, the ferocious instinct common to most
young animals asserted itself in a relish for the horrible,
which rather contradicted the mosquito incident. Bala
visibly gloats over the gory head of Goliath, and intensely
admires David as he operates upon it. Her favourite part
of the story about his encounter with the lion is the sug-
gestive sentence, " I caught him by the beard " ; and Bala
loves to show you exactly how he did it. But then that is
different from seeing it done ; and after all it is only a story,
and it happened long ago.

I have told how the ignorant once called Bala prosaic.
Bala knows nothing of poetry, but is full of the little seeds
of that strange and wonderful plant; and the time to get
to know her is when the evening sky is a golden blaze, or
glows with that mystic glory which wakens something
within us and makes it stir and speak.

"God has not lighted His fire to-night," she said wist-
fully one evening when the West was colourless ; but when
that fire is lighted she stands and gazes satisfied. "What
does God do when His fire goes out?" was a question on
one such evening, as the mountains darkened in the passing
of the after-glow ; and then : " Why does He not light it
every night ? "

" Amma ! I have looked into Heaven ! " she said suddenly
to me after a long silence. " I have seen quite in, and I know
what it is like." " What is it like ? Can you tell me ? " and
the child's voice answered dreamily : " It was shining, very
shining." Then with animation, in broken but vivid Tamil :
" Oh, it was beautiful ! all a garden like our garden, only
bigger, and there were flowers and flowers and flowers I " —
here words failed to describe the number, and a compre-

Opposites

hensive sweep of the hand served instead. "And our dolls
can walk there. They never can down here, poor things ! And
Jesus plays with our babies there " (the dear little sisters who
have gone to the nursery out of sight, but are unforgotten
by the children). " He plays with Indraneela — lovely games."
"What games, Bala?" I asked, wondering greatly what
she would say. There was a long, thoughtful pause, and
Bala looked at me with grave, contented eyes: —
"New games," she said simply.

Bala's opposite is Chellalu. We never made any mistake
about her. We never thought her good. Not that she is
impossibly bad. She was created for play and for laughter,
and very happy babies are not often very wicked ; but she
is so irrepressible, so hopelessly given up to fun, that her
kindergarten teacher, Rukma, smiles a rueful smile at the
mention of her name. For to Chellalu the most unreasonable
thing you can ask is implicit obedience, which unfortunately
is preferred by us to any amount of fun. She will learn to
obey, we are not afraid about that ; but more than any of
our children, her attitude towards this demand has been one
of protest and surprise. She thinks it unfair of grown-up
people to take advantage of their size in the arbitrary way
they do. And when, disgusted with life's dispensations, she
condescends to expostulate, her "Ba-a-a-a" is a thing to
affright. But this is the wrong side of Chellalu, and not
for ever in evidence. The right side is not so depressing.

It is a brilliant morning in late November. The world,
all washed and cooled by the rains, has not had time to get
hot and tired, and the air has that crystal quality which is
the charm of this season in South India. Every wrinkle on
the brown trunks of the trees in the compound, every twig
and leaf, stands out with a special distinctness of its own,
and the mountains in the distance glisten as if made of
precious stones.

The Blameless Chellalu

Suddenly, all unconscious of affinity or contrast, a little
person in scarlet conies dancing into the picture, which opens
to receive her, for she belongs to it. Her hands are full
of Gloriosa lilies, fiery red, terra-cotta, yellow, delicate old-rose
and green — such a mingling of colour, but nothing discordant
— and the child, waving her spoils above her head, sings at
the top of her voice something intended to be the chorus
of a kindergarten song : —

Oh, the delight of the glorious light I

The joy of the shining blue !
Beautiful flowers ! wonderful flowers I

Oh, I should like to be you !

" But, Chellalu, where did you get them ? " for the lilies
in the garden are supposed to be safe from attack. Chellalu
looks up with frank, brown eyes. " For you ! " she says briefly
in Tamil ; but there is a wealth of forgiveness in the tone
as she offers her armful of flowers. Chellalu wonders at
grown-up hearts which can harbour unworthy suspicions
about blameless little children. As if she would have picked
them !

" But, Chellalu, where did you get them ? " and still looking
grieved and surprised and forgiving, Chellalu explains that
yesterday evening the elder sisters went for a walk in the
fields, and brought home so many lilies, that after all just
claims were met there were still some over — an expressive
gesture shows the heap — so Chellalu thought of her Animal
(mother) and went and picked out the best for her. Then by
way of emphasis the story is attempted in English : " Very
good? Yesh. Naughty? No. Kindergarten room want
flowers ? No. I " (patting herself approvingly) " very good ;
yesh." With Chellalu, speech is a mere adjunct to con-
versation, a sort of footnote to a page of illustration.

Opposites

The illustration is the thing that speaks. So now both
Tamil and English are illuminated by vivid gesture of hands,
feet, the whole body indeed ; curls and even eyelashes play
their part, and the final impression produced upon her
questioner is one of complete contrition for ever having
so misjudged a thing so virtuous.

But Chellalu wastes no sympathy upon herself. She is
accustomed to be believed ; and perfectly happy in her mind,
casts a keen glance round, for who knows what new delights
may be somewhere within reach ! " Ah ! " — the deep-breathed
sigh of content — is always a danger signal where this innocent
child is concerned. I turn in time to avert disaster, and
Chellalu, finding life dull with me, departs.

Then the little scarlet figure with its crown of careless
curls scampers across the sunny space, and dives into the
shadow of a tree. There it stays. Something arresting has
happened — some skurry of squirrel up the trunk, or dart of
lizard, or hurried scramble of insect, under cover out of reach
of those terrible eyes. Or better still, something is " playing
dead," and the child, fascinated, is waiting for it to resurrect.
And then the song about the lilies begins again, only it is
all a jumble this time ; for Chellalu sings just as it comes,
untrammelled by thoughts about sequence or sense, and when
she forgets the words she calmly makes them up. And I
cannot help thinking that Chellalu is very like her song;
here is an intelligible bit, a line or two in order, then a
cheerful tumble up, and an irresponsible conclusion. The
tune too seems in character — " Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird
on the wing " ; the swinging old Jacobite air had fitted itself
to a nursery song about the brave fire-lilies, and something
in its abandon to the happy mood of the moment seems to
express the child.

It is not easy to express her. "If you had to describe
Chellalu, how would you do it?" I asked my colleague this

"AIYO!"

(Fingers and toes curled in grieved surprise.)
" Did you think I would have done it ? "

Only More So

morning, hoping for illumination. "I would not attempt it!
Who would?" she answered helpfully.

"Chellalu! Oh, you need ten pairs of eyes and ten pairs
of hands, and even then you could never be sure you had her " —
this was her nurse's earliest description. She was six months
old then, she is three and three-quarters now ; but she is
what she was, " only more so."

Before Chellalu had a single tooth she had developed
mother-ways, and would comfort distressed babies by thrust-
ing into their open mouths whatever was most convenient.
At first this was her own small thumb, which she had once
found good herself ; but she soon discovered that infants can
bite, and after that she offered rattle-handles. Later, she
used to stagger from one hammock to another and swing
them. And often, before she understood the perfect art of
balance, she would find herself, to her surprise, on the floor,
as the hammock in its rebound knocked her over. She felt
this ungrateful of the baby inside ; but she seemed to reflect
that it was young and knew no better, for she never retaliated,
but picked herself up and began again. These hammocks,
which are our South Indian cradles, are long strips of white
cotton hung from the roof, and they make delightful swings.
Chellalu learned this early, and her nurse's life was a burden
to her because of the discovery.

" She could walk before she could stand * — this is another
nursery description, and truer than it sounds. Certainly no
one ever saw Chellalu learning to walk. She was a baby
one day, rapid in unexpected motion, but only on all fours ;
the next day — or so it seems, looking back — she was every-
where on her two feet. " Now there will be no place where
she won't be ! " groaned the family, the first time she was
seen walking about with an air of having done it all her
life. And appalling visions rose of Chellalu standing on the
wall of the well looking down, or sitting in the bucket left

Opposites

by some careless water-drawer just on the edge of the wall,
or trying to descend by the rope.

Before this date such diversions as the classic Pattycake
had been much in favour. Chellalu's Attai (the word here
and hereafter signifies Mrs. Walker, " Mother's elder sister ")
had taught it to her; and whenever and wherever Chellalu
saw her Attai, she immediately began to perform " Prick it
and nick it" with great enthusiasm. But after she could
walk, Chellalu would have nothing more to do with such
childish things. " Show us Edward Rajah ! " the older
children would say ; and instead of standing up with a regal
dignity and crowning her curls with the appropriate gesture,
Chellalu would merely look surprised. They had forgotten.
She was not a baby now. Such trifles are for babies.

CHAPTER III

The Scamp

CHAPTER III
The Scamp

" IT^VAT-A-CAKE is a thing of the past, but the stage from

I— ^ the highest point of view is still distinctly attractive " ;

M. so decided Chellalu, and resolved to devote herself
thenceforth to this new and engrossing pursuit. She chose the
scene of her first public performance without consulting us. It
was the open floor of the church, on a Sunday morning, in the
midst of a large congregation. This was how it happened.

Chellalu's Attai, who in those days was unaware of all the
painful surprises in store, had taken her to morning service,
and allowed her to sit beside her on the mat at the back of the
church. All through the first part of the service Chellalu was
good ; and as the sermon began, she was forgotten. In our
church we sit on the floor, men on one side, women and
children on the other. A broad aisle is left between, and the
Iyer (Mr. Walker), refusing to be boxed up in the usual
manner, walks up and down as he preaches. This interested
Chellalu.

That morning the sermon was to children, and the subject
was " Girdles." The East of this ancient India is the East to
which the prophet spoke by parable and picture ; and, follow-
ing that time-worn path, the preacher pictured the parable
of Jeremiah's linen girdle : the attention of the people was
2 17

The Scamp

riveted upon him, and no one noticed what was happening on
the mat at the end of the church. Only we, up at the front
with all the other children, saw, without being able to stop it,
the dreadful pantomime. For Chellalu, wholly absorbed and
pleased with this unexpected delight, first stood on the mat
and acted the girdle picture ; then, growing bolder, advanced
out into the open aisle, and, following the preacher's gestures,
reproduced them all exactly. It was a moment of tension ; but
if ever a child had a good angel in attendance, Chellalu has,
for something always stops her before the bitter end. I forget
what stopped her then ; something invisible, and so, doubtless,
the angel. But we did not breathe freely till we had her safe
at home.

Chellalu's visible angel is the gentle Esli, a young convert-
helper, of a meek and lowly disposition. At first sight nothing
seems more unsuitable, for Chellalu needs a firm hand. But
firmness without wisdom would have been disastrous ; so as we
had not the perfect combination, we chose the less dangerous
virtue, and gave the nursery scamp to the gentlest of us all.
Sometimes, to tell the whole unromantic truth, we have been
afraid less Esli was spilling emotion in vain upon this graceless
soul ; and we have suggested an exchange of angels — but some-
how it has never come to pass. Once we almost did it. For a
noise past all bounds called us down to the nursery, and we
found the cause of it in a huddled heap in the corner.
"Chellalu! what is the matter?" Only the softest of soft
sobs, heard in the silence that followed our advent, and one
round shoulder heaved, and the curly head went down on
the arm in an attitude of woe. Now this is not Chellalu's
way at all. Soft sobbing is not in her line ; and I turned to
the twenty-nine children now prancing about in unholy glee,
and they shouted the explanation : " Oh, she is Esli Accal !
She was very exceedingly naughty. She would not come when
Accal called ; she raced round the room so fast that Accal

CHELLALU, WATCHING THE PICTURE-CATCHER WITH SOME

SUSPICION.
" Whatever is he doing with that black box ? "

Their Real Use

could not catch her, and then she jumped out of her cumasu "
(the single small garment worn), " and ran out into the garden !
And Esli Accal sat down in a corner and cried. And Chellalu
is Esli Accal ! "

But the pet opportunity in those glad days was when some
freak of manner in friend or visitor suggested a new game.
We used to wish, sometimes, that these kind people under-
stood how much pleasure they were giving to the artless baba
who was studying them with such interest, while they, all
unconscious of their real use, imagined probably she was
thinking of nothing more serious than sweets. After an
hour in the bungalow, Chellalu would wander off, apparently
because she was tired of us, but really because she was full
of a new and original idea, and wanted an audience. Once
she puzzled the nursery community who had not been visiting
the bungalow, by mincing about on pointed toes, with shoulders
shrugged like a dancing master in caricature. The babies
thought this a very nice game, and for weeks they played it
industriously.

Chellalu talked late — she has long ago made up for lost time
— but she was never at a loss for an answer to a question which
could be answered by action. " Who is in the nursery now ? "
we asked her one afternoon when she had escaped before the
tea-bell, that trumpet of jubilee to the nursery, had rung.
She smiled and sat down slowly, and then sighed. Another
sigh, and she proceeded to perform her toilet. When the
small hands went up to the head with an action of decorously
swinging the back hair up and coiling it into a loose knot, and
when a spasmodic shake suggested it must be done over again,
there was no doubt as to who was in charge. No one but the
excellent Pakium, one of our earlier workers, ever did things
quite like this. No one else was so ponderous. No one
sighed in that middle-aged manner, no one but Pakium. We
never could blame Pakium for Chellalu's escape. As well

The Scamp

blame a mature cat for the escapades of her kitten Chellalu,
watching for a clue as to her fate, would sigh again pro-
foundly. It was never easy to return her.

We were not sorry when this phase passed into something
safer for herself, though perhaps not so charming to the
public. Chellalu at two and three-quarters had surgical
ambitions. Medical work she considered slow. She liked
operations. Her first, so far as we know, was performed
upon the unwilling eye of a smaller and weaker sister. " Lie
down ! " she had commanded, and the patient had lain down.
" Open your eyes ! " At this point the victim realised what
she was in for, and her howls brought deliverance ; but not
before Chellalu had the agitated baby's head in a firm
grip between her knees, and holding the screwed-up
eye wide open with one hand, was proceeding to drop in
"medicine" with the other. Mercifully the medicine was
water.

Thwarted in this direction, Chellalu applied herself to
bandaging. She would persuade someone to lend her a
finger or a toe ; the owner was assured it was sore — very
sore. She would then proceed to bandage it to the best of
her ability. But all this was mere play. What Chellalu's
soul yearned for was a real knife, or even only a needle, pro-
vided it would prick and cause red blood to flow. Oh to
be allowed to operate properly, as grown-up people do !
Chellalu had seen them do it — had seen thorns extracted
from little bare feet, and small sores dressed; and it had
deeply interested her. The difficulty was, no one would
oifer a limb. She walked up and down the nursery one
morning with a bit of an old milk tin, very jagged and sharp
and inviting, and secreted in her curls was a long, bright
darning needle ; but though she took so much trouble to
prepare, no one would give her a chance to perform, and
Chellalu was disgusted. Someone who did not know her

"OH, ITS A JOKE!"

Yesh : No

suggested she should perform on herself. This disgusted
her still more. Do doctors perform on themselves !

Chellalu's latest phase introduces the kindergarten. For
an educational comrade, perceiving our defects in this direc-
tion, furnished a kindergarten for us, and gave us a kind
push-off into these pleasant waters ; so the little boat sails
gaily, and the children at least are content.

Chellalu has never been so keen about this institution as
the other babies are. " Do you like the kindergarten ? " some
one asked her the other day ; and she answered with her
usual decision : " Yesh. No." We thought she was talking
at random, and tested her by questions about things which
we knew she liked or disliked. But she was never caught.
"Well, then, don't you like the kindergarten?" "Yesh.
No." It was evident she knew what she meant, and said it
exactly. Bits of it she likes, other bits she thinks might
be improved. The trouble is that she has an objection to
sitting in the same place for more than a minute at
longest. Other babies, steady, mature things of five, are
already evolving quite orderly sentences in English — the
language in which the kindergarten is partly taught — and
we feel they are getting on. Chellalu never stops long
enough to evolve anything, and yet she seems to be doing
a little. From the first week she has talked all she knew
in unabashed fashion. " Good morning very much " was an
early production ; and it was followed by many oddments
forgotten now, but comical in effect at the time, which
perhaps may explain the otherwise inexplicable fact that
she sometimes learns something.

One only of those early dashes into the unexplored land
is remembered, because it enriched us with a new synonym.
It was at afternoon tea that a sympathetic Sittie (the word
means "Mother's younger sister"), knowing that Chellalu
had received something thoroughly well earned, asked her

The Scamp

In English : " What did Ammal give you this morning ? "
Chellalu caught at the one familiar word in this sentence
(for the babies learn the names of the flowers in the garden
before they are troubled with lesser matters), and she
answered brightly : " Morning-glory ! " So Morning-glory has
become to us an alias for smacks.

This same Morning-glory is the subject of one of the
kindergarten songs. For after searching through two or
three hundred pages of nursery rhymes, and interviewing
many proper kindergarten songs, we found few that belonged
to the Indian babies' world ; and so we had to make them
for ourselves. These songs are about the flowers and the
birds and other simple things, and are twittered by the
tiniest with at least some intelligence,- which at present is
as much as we can wish. All the babies sing to the flowers,
but it is Chellalu who gives them surprises. One day we
saw her standing under a bamboo arch, covered with her
favourite Morning-glory. She had two smaller babies with
her, one on either side. " Amma ! Look ! " she called ; but
italics are inadequate to express the emphasis. "LOOK,
Morning — glory — kissing — 'chother," and she pointed with
eagerness to the nestling little clusters of lilac, growing, as
their pretty manner is, close to each other. Then, seizing
each of the babies in a fervent and somewhat embarrassing
embrace, she hugged and kissed them both; and finally
wheeling round on the flowers, addressed them impressively :
' ' For — all — loving — little — Indian — children — want — to — be —
like — you."

CHAPTER IV

The Photographs

'THAT THING AGAIN!" (Page 28.)

CHAPTER IV

The Photographs

I DO not know how they will strike the critical public,
but the photos are so much better than we dared to
expect, that we are grateful and almost satisfied. Of
course, they are insipid as compared with the lively origi-
nals ; but the difficulty was to get them of any truthful
sort whatsoever, for the babies regarded the photographer
— the kindest and mildest of men — with the gravest sus-
picion : and the moment he appeared, little faces, all
animation before, would stiffen into shyness, and the light
would slip out of them, and the naturalness, so that all
the camera saw, and therefore all it could show, was a
succession of blanks.

Then, too, when our artist friend was with us we were
in the grasp of an epidemic of cholera. Morning and
evening, and sometimes into the night, we were tending
the sick and dying in the village ; and in the interval
between we had little heart for photographs. But the
visit of a real photographer is a rare event in Dohnavur,
and we forced ourselves to try to take advantage of it.
Remembering our difficulties, we wonder we got anything
at all ; and we hope that stranger eyes will be kind.

The Photographs

Often when we looked at the pretty little reversed
picture in the camera, with its delicate colouring and the
grace of movement, we have wished that we could send
it as we saw it, all living and true. The photos were
taken in the open air ; underfoot was soft terra-cotta-coloured
sand ; overhead, the cloudless blue. In such a setting the
baby pictures look their brightest, something very different
from these dull copies in sepia. An Oriental scene in
print always looks sorry for itself, and quite apologetic.
It knows it is almost a farce, and very flat and poor.

Then there were difficulties connected with character.
Our photographer was more accustomed to the dignified
ways of mountains than to the extremely restless habit of
children ; and he never could understand why they would
not sit for him as the mountains sat, and let him focus
them comfortably. The babies looked at things from an
opposite point of view, and strongly objected to delays
and leisureliness of every description. Sometimes when the
focussing process promised to be much prolonged, we put
a child we did not wish to photograph in the place of
one upon whom we had designs, and then at the last
moment exchanged her. But the baby thus beguiled
seemed to divine our purpose ; and, resenting such en-
snarements, would promptly wriggle out of focus. It was
like trying to observe some active animalculse under a
high power. The microscope is perfect, the creatures are
entrapped in a drop of water on the slide ; but the game
is not won by any means. Sometimes, after spoiling more
plates than was convenient, our artist almost gave up in
despair ; but he never quite gave up, and we owe what
we have to his infinite patience.

Pyarie was the most troublesome of these small sitters,
though she was old enough to know better. My mother
was with us when she came to us, a tiny babe and very

PYARIE AND VINEETHA.

" Do smile, you little Turk ! "

The Bete Noir

delicate. She had loved her and helped to nurse hev, and
so we wanted a happy photograph for her sake; but
nothing was further from Pyarie's intentions, and instead
of smiling, she scowled. Our first attempt was in the
compound, where a bullock - bandy stood. Pyarie and
Vineetha, a little girl of about the same age, were veiy
pleased to climb over the pole and untwist the rope and
play see-saw; but when the objectionable camera appeared,
they stared at it with aversion, and no amount of coaxing
would persuade Pyarie to smile. " Can't you do something
to improve her expression?" inquired the photographer,
emerging from his black hood; then someone said in des-
peration : " Do smile, you little Turk ! " Vineetha, about
whose expression we were not concerned, obediently smiled;
but Pyarie looked thunderclouds, and turned her head away.
She was caught before she turned, poor dear, so that
photograph was a failure.

Once again our kind friend tried. This time he gave
her a doll. Pyarie is most motherly. She is usually tender
and loving with dolls, and we hoped for a sweet expression.
But in this we were disappointed. She accepted the
doll — a beautiful thing, with a good constitution and im-
perturbable temper; and she looked it straight in the
face — a rag face painted — smiling as we wanted her to
smile. Then she smote it, and she scolded it, and called
for a stick and whacked it, and called for a bigger stick
and repeated the performance. Finally she stopped, laid
the doll upon the step, sat down on it, and smiled. But
she was hopelessly out of focus by this time, and it was
weary work getting her in. She smiled during the process
in a perfectly exasperating manner, but the moment all
was ready she suddenly wriggled out; and when invited
to go in again, she shook her head decidedly, and pointing
to the camera with its glaring glass eye, covered at that

The Photographs

moment with its cloth, she remarked, " Naughty 1 Naughty!"
and we had to give her up.

" Perhaps she would be happier in someone's arms," next
suggested the long-suffering artist; and so one morning, just
after her bath, she was caught up, sweet and smiling, and
played with till the peals of merry laughter assured us of an
easy victory. But the camera was no sooner seen stalking
round to the nursery, than suspicions filled Pyarie's breast.
That thing again! And the photograph taken under such
circumstances is left to speak for itself. Why did it follow
her everywhere ? Life, haunted by a camera, was not worth
living — in which sentiment some of us heartily concur.

Once an attempt was made when Pyarie and two other
little girls were busily playing on the doorstep. Pyarie soon
perceived and expressed her opinion about the fraud — for the
camera's stealthy approach could not be kept from the
children. " Disgusting ! " she remarked in explicit young
Tamil, and looked disgusted. The photograph which resulted
was perfect in detail of little rounded limb and curly head,
but it was lamentable as regards expression ; so once more
our persevering friend tried to catch her unawares. He
showed us the result at breakfast in the shape of a negative
which we recognised as Pyarie. He seemed very pleased.
" Look at the pose ! " he said. There was pose certainly, but
where was the smile ? Pyarie's one idea had evidently been
to ward off something or someone ; and our artist explained
it by saying that in despair of getting her quiet for one second,
he had directed his servant to climb an almost overhanging
tree, and the child apparently thought he was going to tumble
on the top of her, and objected. " I got another of her smiling
beautifully, but the plate is cracked," we were told, after the
table had admired the pose. That is a way plates have. The
one you most want cracks.

Poor little Pyarie ; we sometimes fear lest her " pose "

J
Du
X
U

/ Want a Birthday

should be too true of her. She takes life hardly, and often
protests. " / want a birthday ! " — this was only yesterday,
when everyone was rejoicing over a birthday jubilation.
Pyarie alone was sorrowful. She stood by her poor little
lonely self, with her head thrown back and her mouth wide
open, and her tears ran into her open mouth as she wailed :
" Aiyo ! Aiyo ! (Alas ! Alas !) / want a birthday ! "

But she is such a loving child, so loyal to her own and so
unselfish to all younger things, that we hope for her more
than we fear. And yet underneath there is a fear; and we
ask those who can understand to remember this little one
sometimes, for the world is not always kind to its poor little
foolish Pyaries.

I am writing in the afternoon, and two little people are
playing on the floor. One has a picture-book, and the other is
looking eagerly as she turns the pages and questions : " What
is it? What is it?" I notice it is always Pyarie who asks
the question, and Vineetha who answers it : " It is a cow. It is
a cat." " Why don't you let Vineetha ask you what it is ? "
I suggest ; but Pyarie continues as before : " What is it ?
What is it ? " varied by " What colour is it? What shape is
it ? Who made it ? " and the mischief in her eyes (would that
our artist could have caught it !) explains the game. It is
decidedly better to be teacher than scholar, because suitable
questions can cover all ignorance. Pyarie has not been to the
kindergarten of late, and has reason to fear Yineetha is some-
what ahead of her ; so she ignores my proposals, and continues
her safe questions. We sometimes think we shall one night be
heard talking in our sleep, and the burden of our conversation
will be always — " What is it ? What colour is it ? What
shape is it? Who made it?"

"'LOOK AT THE POSE!'
He said. There was pose, certainly, but where was the smile ? " (Page 28.)

CHAPTER V

Tara and Evu

TARA.

CHAPTER V

Tara and Evil

OUR nurseries are full of contrasts, but perhaps the two
who are most unlike are the little Tara and Evu, aged,
at the hour of writing, three years and two and a half.
I am hammering at my typewriter, when clear through its
metallic monotony comes in distinct double treble, " Amma !
Tala ! " " Amma ! Evu ! " They always announce each other
in this order, and with much emphasis. If it is impossible to
stop, I give them a few toys, and they sit down on the mat
exactly opposite my table and play contentedly. This lasts
for a short five minutes ; then a whimper from Tara makes
me look up, and I see Evu, with a face of more mischief than
malice, holding all the toys — Tara's share and her own — in
a tight armful, while Tara points at her with a grieved
expression which does not touch Evu in the least. A word,
however, sets things right. Evu beams upon Tara, and pours
the whole armful into her lap. Tara smiles forgivingly, and
returns Evu's share. Evu repentantly thrusts them back.
Tara's heart overflows, and she hugs Evu. Evu wriggles out
of this embrace, and they play for another five minutes or
so without further misadventure.

Only once I remember Evu sinned beyond forgiveness.
The occasion was Pyarie's rag-doll of smiling countenance, which
3 33

Tara and Evu

had been badly neglected by the family. But Tara felt for
it and loved it. She was small at the time, and the doll was
large, and Tara must have got tired of carrying it ; but she
would not tell it so, and for one whole morning she staggered
about with the cumbersome beauty tilted over her shoulder,
which gave her the appearance of an unbalanced but very
affectionate parent.

This was too much for Evu, to whom the comic appeals
much more than the sentimental. She watched her oppor-
tunity, and pounced upon the doll. Tara gave chase ; but Evu's
fat legs can carry her faster than one would suppose, and
Tara's wails rose to a shriek when across half the garden's
width she saw that ruthless sinner swing her treasure round
by one arm and then deliberately jump on it. It was hours
before Tara recovered.

Such a breach of the peace is happily rare ; for the two
are a pretty illustration of the mutual attraction of opposites.
At this moment they are playing ball. This is the manner
of the game : Tara sits in a high chair and throws the ball
as far as she can. Evu dashes after it like an excited kitten,
and kitten- wise badly wants to tumble over and worry it; for
it is made of bits of wool, which, as every sensible baby knows,
were only put in to be pulled out. She resists the temptation,
however, and presents the ball to Tara with a somewhat
inconsequent " Tankou ! " " Tankou ! " returns Tara politely,
and tosses the ball again. This time Evu sits down with her
back to Tara, and proceeds to investigate the ball. It is
perfectly fascinating. The ends are all loose and quite easily
pulled out. Evu forgets all about Tara in her keen desire to
see to the far end of this delight. " Evu ! " comes from the
chair in accents of dignified surprise. " Tala ! " exclaims Evu
abashed, and hurries up with the ball. "Tankou!" she says
as before, and Tara responds " Tankou ! " This is an integral
part of the game. If either forgets it, the other corrects her

Devotions

by remarking inquiringly, " Tankou ? " whereupon the echo
replies in a tone of apology, " Tankou ! "

Both these babies are devout, as most things Indian are.
But Evu cannot sit still long enough to be promoted to go
to church ; and perhaps this is the reason why in religious
matters Tara takes the lead, for she does go to church. In
secularities it is always Evu who initiates, and Tara admiringly
follows. The ball game was exceptional only because Evu
prefers the rdle of kitten to that of queen.

This little characteristic is shown in common ways. The
two are sitting on your knee entirely comfortable and content.
The prayer-bell rings. Down struggles Tara. " To prayers
I must go ! " she says with decision in Tamil. " Evu too,"
urges Evu, also in Tamil. " Turn ! " says Tara in superior
English, and waits. Evu "turns," and they hastily depart.

Or it is the time for evening hymns and good-night kisses.
We have sung through the chief favourites, ending always
with, "Jesus, tender Shepherd." "Now sing, 'Oh, luvvly lily
g'oing in our garden ! ' ' This from Tara. Echo from Evu :
" Yes ; ' Oh, luvvly lily g'oing in our garden ! ' ' You point out
to the garden : " It is dark, there are no lovely lilies to be seen ;
besides, that is not exactly a hymn ; shall we have ' Jesus,
tender Shepherd,' again, and say good-night?" But this is not
at all satisfactory. Tara looks a little hurt. " Tender Shepperd,
no ! Oh, luvvly lily ! " Evu wonders if we are making excuses.
Perhaps we have forgotten the tune, and she starts it : —

Oh, lovely lily, Oh, little children,

Growing in our garden, Playing in our garden,

Who made a dress BO fair God made this dress so fair

For you to wear ? For us to wear.

Who made you straight and tall God made us straight and tall
To give pleasure to us all ? To give pleasure to you all.

Oh, lovely lily, Oh, little children,

Who did it all ? God did it all.

Tara and Evu

Then Tara smiles all round, and you are given to under-
stand you have earned your good-night kisses. Evidently
to Tara at least there is a sense of incompleteness some-
where if the lovely lilies are excluded from the family
devotions.

To Tara and to Evu, as to most babies, the garden is a
pleasant place. But when they grow up and make gardens,
they will not fill them with forbidden joys as we do. One
of the temptations of life is furnished by inconsiderate ferns,
which hold their curly infant fronds just within reach.
Then there are crotons, with bright leaves aggressively yellow
and delightful, and there are " tunflowers "; and the babies
think us greedy in our attitude towards all these things.
The croton was especially alluring ; and one day Tara was
found tiptoe on a low wall, reaching up with both hands,
eagerly pulling bits of leaf off. She was brought to me to
be judged ; and I said : " Poor leaves ! Shall we try to put
them on again ? " And hand in hand we went to the garden,
and Tara tried. But the pulled-off bits would not fit on
again ; and Tara's face was full of serious thought, though
she said nothing. Next day she was found on the same
low wall, reaching up tiptoe in the same sinful way to the
shining yellow leaves overhead. Quite suddenly she stopped,
put her hands behind her back, and never again was she
known to pick croton leaves to pieces.

The same plan prevailed with the ferns. The poor little
crumples of silver and green moved her to pity, and she left
them to uncurl in peace when once she had tried and sadly failed
to help them. But the sunflowers' feelings did not affect her
in quite the same way. The kind we have in abundance is
that little dwarf variety with a thin stalk, and a cheerful
face which smiles up at you even after you behead it, and
does not seem to mind. Tara was convinced such treatment
did not hurt them. They would stop smiling if it did. But

Tara's Way

one day she suddenly seemed to feel a pang of compunction,
for she looked at the little useless heads and sighed. I had
suggested their being fitted on again, as with the croton
leaves and ferns. But this idea had failed ; and what
worked the change I know not, for Tara never told. But
" tunflowers " now are left in peace so far as she is concerned ;
and she is learning to pick the free grasses and wild-flowers,
which happily grow for everybody, and to make sure their
stalks are long enough to go into water, which is the last
thing untutored babies seem to think important.

There is much to be done for all our children, but perhaps
for Tara especially, if she is to grow up strong in soul to
fight the battles of life. We felt this more than ever on
the day of our last return from the hills, after nearly seven
weeks' absence. On the evening when we left them, we had
gone round the nurseries after the little ones had fallen asleep,
and said goodbye to each of them without their knowing
it ; but when we came to Tara's mat, and kissed the little
sleeping face, she stirred and said, " Amma ! " in her sleep ;
and we stole away fearing she should wake and understand.
Now in the early morning we were home again, and all
the children who were up were on the verandah to welcome
us, each in her own way. It was Tara's way which
troubled us.

At first most of the babies were shy, for six weeks
are like six years to the very young ; but soon there was
a general rush and a thoroughly cheerful chatter. Tara did
not join in it. She stood outside the little dancing dazzle
of delight — the confusion of little animated coloured dots
is rather like the shake of a kaleidoscope — and she just
looked and looked. Then, as we drew her close, the little
hands felt and stroked one's face as if the evidence of eye
and ear were not enough to make her sure beyond a doubt
that her own had come back to her; and then, as the

Tara and Evu

assurance broke, she clung with a little cry of joy, and
suddenly burst into tears.

If only we could hold her safe and sheltered in our arms
for ever ! How the longing swept through one at that
moment : for the winds of the world are cold. But it cannot
be, it should not be, for such love would be weak indeed.
Rather do we long to brace the gentle nature so that its
very sensitiveness may change to a tender power, and the
fountain of sweet waters refresh many a desert place. But
who is sufficient for even this? Handle the little soul care-
lessly, harden rather than brace, misinterpret the broken
expression, misunderstand the signs — and the sweet waters
turn to bitterness. God save us from such mistake !

We covet prayer for our children. We want to know
that around them all is thrown that mysterious veil of pro-
tection which is woven out of prayer. We need prayer,
too, for ourselves, that our love may be brave and wise.

Evu's disposition is different. It would not be easy to
imagine Evu overcome by her feelings as Tara was at that
hour of our return. One cannot imagine a kitten shedding
tears of joy; and Evu is a kitten, a dear little Persian kitten,
with nothing worse than mischief at present to account for.
Of that there is no lack. "Oh, it is Evu !" we say, and every-
one knows what to expect when " it is Evu." Evu's chief
sentiment that morning, so far as she expressed it, was
rather one of wonder at our ignorant audacity. " You
vanished in the night when we were all asleep, and now
you suddenly drop from the skies before we are properly
awake, and expect us all to begin again exactly where we
left off. How little you know of babies ! " Doubtless this
sentence was somewhat beyond her in language ; but Evu is
not dependent on language, and she conveyed the sense of
it to us. She backed out of reach of kisses, and stood with
a small finger upraised ; much as a kitten might raise its

Kittenhood

paw in mock protest to its mother. She soon made friends,
however, and proved herself an affectionate kitten, though
wholly unemotional.

When Tara is naughty, as she is at times, like most people
of only three, a reproachful look brings her spirits down to
the lowest depths of distress. Evu is more inclined to hold
up that funny little warning first finger, and shake it straight
in your face. This, at two and a half, is terrible presumption ;
but the brown eyes are so innocent, you cannot be too shocked.
Sometimes, however, the case is worse, and Evu tries to sulk.
She sits down solemnly on the ground, and throws her four
fat limbs about in a dreadful recklessness, supposed to strike
the grown-up offender dumb with awe and penitence. Some-
times she even tries to put out her lower lip, but it was not
made a suitable shape, for it smiles in spite of itself ; and
then there is a sudden spring ; and two little arms are round
your neck, and you are being told, if you know how to
listen, what a very tiresome thing it is to feel obliged to
sin. Then, with the comforting sense of irresponsible kitten-
hood fully restored, Evu discovers some new diversion, and
you find yourself weakly wishing kittens need not grow
into cats.

Principalities, Powers, Rulers

CHAPTER VI

Principalities, Powers, Rulers

IT may seem a quick transition from nursery to battle-field ;
but rightly to understand this story, it must be remem-
bered that our nursery is set in the midst of the
battle-field. It is a little sheltered place, where no sound of
war disturbs the babies at their play, and the flowers bloom
like the babies in happy unconsciousness of battles, and
make a garden for us and fill it full of peace ; but under-
lying the babies' caresses and the sweetness of the flowers
there is always a sense of conflict just over, or soon coming
on. We " let the elastic go " in the nursery. We are happy,
light-hearted children with our children ; sometimes we even
wonder at ourselves ; and then remember that the happiness of
the moment is a pure, bright gift, not meant to be examined,
but just enjoyed, and we enjoy it as if there were no
battles in the world or any sadness any more.

And yet this book comes hot from the fight. It is not a
retrospect written in the calm after-years, when the outline
of things has grown indistinct and the sharpness of life is
blurred. There is nothing mellowed about a battle-field.
Even as I write these words, the post comes in and brings
two letters. One tells of a child of twelve in whom the
first faint desires have awakened to lead a different life.

Principalities, Powers, Rulers

"She is a Temple girl. Pray that she may have grace to
hold on; and that if she does, we may be guided through
the difficult legal complications. Poor little girl ! It makes
one sick to think of her spoiled young life ! " The other is
a Tamil letter, about another child who is in earnest, so far
as the writer can ascertain, to escape from the life planned
out for her. She learned about Jesus at school, and responded
in her simple way ; but was suddenly taken from school, and
shut up in the back part of the house and not allowed to
learn any more. "Like a little dove fluttering in a cage,
so she seemed to me. But she is a timid dove, and the
house is full of wickedness. How will she hold out against
it? By God's grace I was allowed to see her for one moment
alone. I gave her a little Gospel. She kissed it with her
eyes" (touched her eyes with it), "and hid it in her dress."

Only a little while ago we traced a bright young
Brahman girl to a certain Temple house, and by means of
one of our workers we made friends with her. The child, a
little widow, was ill, and was sent to the municipal hospital
for medicine. It was there our worker met her, and the
child whispered her story in a few hurried words. She had
been kidnapped (she had not time to tell how), and shut up
in the Temple house, and told she must obey the rules of
the house and it was useless to protest. "If we could help
you," she was asked, " would you like to come to us ? "
The child hesitated — the very name "Christian" was abhorrent
to her — but after a moment's doubt she nodded, and then
slipped away. Our worker never saw her again. The con-
versation must have been noticed by the child's escort, and
reported. She was sent off to another town, and all
attempts to trace her failed.

And the god to whom these young child - lives are
dedicated? In South India all the greater symbols of deity
are secluded in the innermost shrine, the heart of the

"The Great"

Temple. In our part of the country the approach to the
shrine is always frequented by Brahman priests, who would
never allow the foreigner near, even if he wished to go
near. " Far, far ! remove thyself far ! " would be the
immediate command, did any polluting presence presume to
draw near the shrine. There are idols by the roadside, and
these are open to all ; but they are lesser creations. The
Great, as the people call that which the Temple contains, is
something apart. It is to these — The Great — that little
children are dedicated ; the whole Temple system is worked
in their name.

" Have you ever seen the god to whom your little ones
would have been given ? " is a question we are often asked ;
and until a few days ago we always answered, " Never." But
now we have seen it, seen it unexpectedly and uninten-
tionally, as we waited for an opportunity to talk to the
crowds of people who had assembled to see it being
ceremonially bathed. We cannot account for our being
allowed to see it, except by the fact that the Brahmans
had withdrawn for the moment, and we being, as our
custom is, in Indian dress, were not noticed in the crowd.

Near the place where the idol was being bathed, with
much pomp by the priests, was a little rest-house, where we
had waited till some child told us all was over. Then we
came out and mingled with the throng, not fearing they
would misunderstand our motive. While we talked with
them, the Brahmans, who had been bathing in the river
after the water had been sanctified by the god, began to
stream up the steps and pass through the crowd, which
opened respectfully and made a wide avenue within itself :
for well the smallest child in that crowd understood that
no touch might defile those Brahmans as they walked,
wringing out their dripping garments and their long
black hair.

Principalities, Powers, Rulers

How we searched the faces as they passed ! — sensual,
cynical, cold faces, faces of utter carelessness, faces full of
pride and aloofness. But there were some so different —
earnest faces, keen faces, faces sensitive and spiritual. Oh,
the pathos of it all ! How our hearts went out to these,
whose eager wistfulness marked them out as truly religious
and sincere ! How we longed that they should hear the
word, " Come unto Me, and I will give you rest " ! They
passed, men young and old, women and children, and very
many widows ; and then suddenly two palanquins which
had been standing near were carried down to the awning
where the idol had been bathed ; and before we realised
what was happening, they passed us. In the first was the
disk, the symbol of the god ; in the second, the god itself.

" We wrestle not against flesh and blood ; but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the
darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
places " — this was the word that flashed through us then.
That small, insignificant, painted, and bejewelled image, in
its gaudy little palanquin, was not only that. It was the
visible representative of Powers.

We thought of a merry child in our nursery who was
dedicated at birth to this particular Power. By some glad
chance that little girl was the first to run up to us in welcome
upon our return home in the evening. We thought of her
with thankfulness which cannot be expressed ; but the
sorrow of other children bound to this same god swept
over us as we stood gazing after the palanquins, till they
became a coloured blur in the shimmering sunshine. There
was one such, a bright little child of eight, who was in
attendance upon an old blind woman belonging to that
Temple. " Yes," she had answered to our distressed
questions, " she is my adopted daughter. Should I not
have a daughter to wait upon me and succeed me? How

Only as Souls "

can I serve the god, being blind ? " We thought of another'
only six, who was to be given to the service " when she
was a suitable age." Her parents were half-proud and
half-ashamed of their intention ; and when they knew we
were aware of it, they denied it, and we found it impossible
to do anything.

We turned to the people about us. They were laughing
and chatting, and the women were showing each other the
pretty glass bangles and necklets they had bought at the
fair. Glorious sunshine filled the world, the whole bright
scene sparkled with life and colour, and all about us was
a "lucid paradise of air." But "only as souls we saw the
folk thereunder," and our spirit was stirred within us. There
is something very solemn in such a scene — something that
must be experienced to be understood. The pitiful triviality,
the sense of tremendous forces at work among these
trivialities ; the people, these crowds of people, absorbed in
the interests of the moment — and Eternity so near; all this
and much more presses hard upon the spirit till one under-
stands the old Hebrew word : " The burden which the
prophet did see."

Does this sound intolerant and narrow, as if no good
existed outside our own little pale? Surely it is not so.
We are not ignorant of the lofty and the noble contained
in the ancient Hindu books ; we are not of those who cannot
recognise any truth or any beauty unless it is labelled with
our label. We know God has not left Himself without
witnesses anywhere. But we know — for the Spirit of Truth
Himself has inspired the description — how desolate is the
condition of those who are without Christ. We dare not
water down the force of such a description till the words mean
practically nothing. We form no hard, presumptuous creed
as to how the God of all the earth will deal with these
masses of mankind who have missed the knowledge of

Principalities, Powers, Rulers

Him here ; we know He will do right. But we know, with
a knowledge which is burnt into us, how very many of the
units live who compose these masses. We know what they
are missing to-day, through not knowing our blessed
Saviour as a personal, living Friend ; and we know what
it means to the thoughtful mind to face an unknown
to-morrow.

A Hindu in a town in the northern part of our district
lay dying. He knew that death was near, and he was in
great distress. His friends tried to comfort him by remind-
ing him of the gods, and by quoting stanzas from the
sacred books ; but all in vain. Nothing brought him any
comfort, and he cried aloud in his anguish of soul.

Then to one of the watchers came the remembrance of
how, as a little lad, he had seen a Christian die. In his
desperation at the failure of all attempts to comfort the
dying man, he thought of this one little, far-back memory;
and though he could hardly dare to hope there would be
much help in it, he told it to his friend. The Christian
was Ragland, the missionary. He was living in a little
house outside the town, when a sudden haemorrhage sur-
prised him, and he had no time to prepare for death. He
just threw himself upon his bed, and looking up, exclaimed,
" Jesus ! " and passed in perfect peace. Outside the window
was a little Hindu boy, unobserved by any in the house. He
had climbed up to the window, and, leaning in, watched all
that happened, heard the one word " Jesus," saw the quick
and peaceful passing ; and then slipped away unnoticed.

The dying Hindu listened as his friend described it to
him. And this little faint ray was the only ray of comfort
that lightened the dark way for him.

Compare that experience with this : —

The missionary to whom this tale was told by the Hindu
who had tried to console his dying friend, was himself

"Oh for a Love "

smitten with dangerous illness, and lay in the dim border-
land, unable to think or frame a prayer. Then like the
melody of long familiar music, without effort, without
strain, came the calming words of the old prayer : " Lighten
our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord ; and by Thy great
mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night;
for the love of Thine only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ."

Could any two scenes present a more moving contrast?
Could any contrast contain a more persuasive call ?

As we went in and out among the crowd, there were
many who turned away uninterested ; but some listened, and
some sat down by the wayside to read aloud, in the sing-
song chant of the East, the little booklets or Gospels we
gave them. We, who are constantly among these people,
feel our need of a fresh touch, as we speak with them
and see them day by day. We need renewed compassions,
renewed earnestness. It is easy to grow accustomed to
things, easy to get cool. We pray not only for t those at
home, who as yet are not awake to feel the eloquence and
the piteousness of the great " voiceless silence " of these
lands, but we pray for ourselves with ever deepening
intensity : —

Oh for a love, for a burning love, like the fervent flame of fire I
Oh for a love, for a yearning love, that will never, never tire !

Lord, in my need I appeal unto Thee ;

Oh, give me my heart's desire I

CHAPTER VII

How the Children Come

CHAPTER VII

How the Children Come

^•^ HEY come in many ways through the help of many

friends. We have told before * how our first two

JL. babies came to us through two pastors, one in the

north, the other in the south of our district. Since then

many Indian pastors and workers, and several warm-hearted

Christian apothecaries and nurses in Government service,

have become interested; with the result that little children

who must otherwise have perished have been saved.

One little babe, who has since become one of our very
dearest, was redeemed from Temple life by the wife of a
leading pastor, who was wonderfully brought to the very place
where the little child was waiting for the arrival of the
Temple people. We have seldom known a more definite
leading. "I being in the way, the Lord led me," was surely
true of that friend that day, and of other Indian sisters who
helped her. Later, when she came to stay with us, she told
us about it. "When first I heard of this new work, I was
not in sympathy with it. I even talked against it to others.
But when I saw that little babe, so innocent and helpless,
and so beautiful too, then all my heart went out to it. And
now " Tears filled her eyes. She could not finish her

* "Overweights of Joy."
53

How the Children Come

sentence. Nor was there any need ; the loving Indian heart
had been won.

My mother was with us when this baby came ; and she
adopted her as her own from the first, and always had the
little basket in which the baby slept put by her bedside.
When the mosquitoes began to be troublesome, the basket
was slipped under her own mosquito net, lest the little pink
blossom should be disturbed. But the baby did not thrive
at first ; and the pink, instead of passing into buff, began to
fade into something too near ivory for our peace of mind.
It was then the friend who had saved the little one came
to stay with us ; and she proposed taking her and her nurse
out to her country village, in hopes of getting a foster-mother
for her there. So my mother, the pastor's wife, the baby, and
her nurse, went out to the Good News Village, and stayed
in the pastor's hospitable home. The hope which had drawn
them there was not fulfilled ; but the memory of that visit
is fresh and fragrant. We read of alienation between Indian
Christians and missionaries. We are told there cannot be
much mutual affection and contact. We often wonder why
it should be so, and are glad we know by experience so little
of the difficulty, that we cannot understand it. We have found
India friendly, and her Christians are our friends. In these
matters each can only speak from personal experience. Ours
has been happy. There may be unkindness and misunder-
standing in India, as in England ; but nowhere could there
be warmer love, more tender affection.

All sorts of people help us in this work of saving the
children. Once it was a convert-schoolboy who saw a widow
with a baby in her arms. Noticing the bright large eyes,
and what he described as the " blossoming countenance of the
child," he got into conversation with the mother, and learned
that she had been greatly tempted by Temple women in the
town, who had admired the baby and wanted to get it. " If

The Talk on the Verandah

I give her to them, she will never be a widow," was the allure-
ment there. The bitterness of widowhood had entered into
her soul, and poisoned the very mother-love within her ; and
yet there was something of it left, for she did not want her
babe to be a widow. The boy, with the leisureliness of the
East, dropped the matter there ; and only in a casual fashion,
a week or so later, mentioned in a letter that he had seen
this pretty child, and that probably, the mother would end
in yielding to the temptation to give her to the Temple —
"but it may be by the grace of God that you will be
able to save her." We sent at once to try to find the
mother; but she had wandered off, and no one knew her
home. However, the boy was stirred to prayer, and we
prayed here ; and a search through towns and villages
resulted at last in the mother being traced and the child
being saved.

Christian women have helped us. One such, sitting on
her verandah after her morning's work, heard two women
in the adjoining verandah discuss the case of a widow who
had come from Travancore with a bright little baby-girl,
whom she had vowed she would give to one of our largest
temples. The Christian woman had heard of the Dohnavur
nurseries, and at once she longed to save this little child, but
hardly knew how to do it. She feared to tell the two women
she had overheard their conversation, so in the simplicity of
her heart she prayed that the widow might be detained and
kept from offering her gift till our worker, old DeVai, could
come ; and she wrote to old Devai.

Happily Devai was at home when the letter reached her ;
otherwise days would have been lost, for her wanderings are
many. She went at once, and found the mother most reason-
able. Her idea had been to acquire merit for herself, and an
assured future for her child, by giving it to the gods ; but
when the matter was opened to her, she was willing to give

How the Children Come

it to us instead. In her case, as in the other, our natural
instinct would have been to try to make some provision by
which the mothers could keep their babies ; but it would not
have been possible. The cruel law of widowhood had begun
to do its work in them. The Temple people's inducements
would have proved too much for them. The children would
not have been safe.

Once it was a man-servant who saved a lovely child. He
heard an aside in the market which put him on the track.
The case was very usual. The parents were dead, and the
grandmother was in difficulties. For the parents' sake she
wanted to keep the dear little babe ; but she was old, and
had no relatives to whose care she could commit it. Mer-
cifully we were the first to hear about this little one ; for
even as a baby she was so winning that Temple people
would have done much to get her, and the old grandmother
would almost certainly have been beguiled into giving her to
them. How often it has been so ! " She will be brought up
carefully according to her caste. All that is beautiful will
be hers, jewels and silk raiment." The hook concealed within
the shining bait is forgotten. The old grandmother feels she
is doing her best for the child, and the little life passes out
of her world.

"It is a dear little thing, and the man (its grandfather)
seemed really fond of it. He said he would not part with
it ; but its parents are both dead, and he did not know
what might happen to it if he died." This from the letter
of a fellow-missionary, who saved the little one and sent
her out to us, is descriptive of many. "Not the measure
of a rape-seed of sleep does she give me. I have done
my best for her since her mother died, but her noise is
most vexatious." This was a father's account of the
matter only a week or two ago. " Have you no women
relations ? " we asked him. " Numerous are my womenfolk,

Not Waifs and Strays

but they are all cumbered with children : how can they
help me?"

Given these circumstances of difficulty, and the strong
under-pull of Temple influence — is it wonderful that many an
orphaned babe finds her way to the Temple house ? For in
the South the child of the kind we are seeking to save is
never offered to us because there is no other place where she is
wanted. Everywhere there are those who are searching for
such children ; and each little one saved represents a counter-
search, and somewhere, earnest prayer. The mystery of our
work, as we have said before, is the oftentimes apparent
victory of wrong over right. We are silent before it. God
reigns ; God knows. But sometimes the interpositions are
such that our hearts are cheered, and we go on in fresh
courage and hope.

Among our earliest friends were some of the London
Missionary Society workers of South Travaiicore. One of
these friends interested her Biblewomen ; and when, one
morning, one of these Biblewomen passed a woman with
a child in her arms on the road leading to a well-known
Temple, she was ready to understand the leading, and made
friends with the mother. She found that even then she
was on her way to a Temple house. A few minutes later
and she would not have passed her on the road.

There was something to account for this directness of
leading. At that time we had our branch nursery at Neyoor,
in South Travancore, ten miles from the place where the
Biblewoman met the mother. On that same morning,
Ponnamal, who was in charge there, felt impelled to go to
the upper room to pray for a little child in danger. She
remained in prayer till the assurance of the answer was
given, and then returned to her work. That evening a bandy
drove up to the nursery, and she saw the explanation of
the pressure and the answer to the prayer. A little child

How the Children Come

was lifted out of the bandy, and laid in her arms. She stood
with her nurses about her, and together they worshipped
God.

This prayer-pressure has been often our experience when
special help is needed to effect the salvation of some little
unknown child. It was our Prayer-day, July 6, 1907. Three
of us were burdened with a burden that could not be lightened
till we met and prayed for a child in peril. We had no
knowledge of any special child, though, of course, we
knew of many in danger. When we prayed for the
many, the impression came the more strongly that we
were meant to concentrate upon one. Who, or where, we
did not know.

Five days later, a letter reached us from a friend in the
Wesleyan Mission, working in a city five hundred miles
distant. The letter was written on the 8th : —

" On the morning of the 6th, a woman who knows our Bible-
women well, told them of a little Brahman baby in great
danger ; so J and two others went at once and spent the
greater part of the morning trying to save the child. It was
in the house of a so-called Temple woman, who had adopted
it, and she had taken every care of it. For some reason she
wanted to go away, and could not take it with her. Two or
three women of her own kind were there and wanted it. One
had money in her hand for it. But J. had already got the
baby into her arms, and reasoned and persuaded until the
woman at last consented. They at once brought it here.
Had the friendly woman not told J., the baby would now be
in the hands of the second Temple woman. I visited the
woman afterwards. She had two grown girls in the room
with her, the elder such a sweet girl. She told me openly
it was all according to custom, and that God had arranged
their lives on those lines, and they coiild not do otherwise.
It is terribly sad, and such houses abound."

" Father, we adore Thee "

Happenings of this sort — if the word "happen ' is not
irreverent in such a connection — have a curiously quieting
effect upon us. We are very happy ; but there is a feeling
of awe which finds expression in words which, at first reading,
may not sound appropriate ; but we write for those who
understand : —

Oh, fix Thy chair of grace, that all my powers

May also fix their reverence . . .
Scatter, or bind, or bend them all to Thee I

Though elements change and Heaven move,

Let not Thy higher court remove,
But keep a standing Majesty in me.

CHAPTER VIII

Others

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CHAPTER VIII

Others

WE have some children who were not in Temple
danger, but who could not have grown up good if
we had not taken them. "If peril to the soul
is of importance," wrote the pastor who sent us two little
girls, "then it is important you should take them": so we
took them. These little ones were in "peril to the soul,"
because their nominal Christian mother had, after her
husband's death, married a Hindu, against the rules of her
religion and his. The children were under the worst in-
fluence; and both were winning little things, who might
have drifted anywhere. We have found it impossible to
refuse such little ones, even though danger of the Temple
kind may not be probable.

Such a child, for example, is the little girl the
Moslem is ready to adopt and convert to the faith. Our
first redeemed from this captivity (literally slavery under
the name of adoption) was a cheerful little person of six,
with the sturdy air the camera caught, and a manner all
her own. An American missionary in an adjoining district
heard of her and her little sister, and wrote to know if we
would take them if he could save them. We could not
say No ; so he tried, and succeeded in getting the elder

Others

child; the little one had been already "adopted," and he
could not get her. "The whole affair was the most
astonishing thing I have ever seen in India," he wrote when
he sent the little girl. The child upon arrival made friends
with another, and confided to her in a burst of confidence :
" Ah, she was a jewel, my own little sister — not like me,
not dark of skin, but ' fair ' and tender ; and the great
man in the turban saw her and desired her, and he took
her away ; and she cried and cried and cried, because she
was only such a very little girl."

"The business was being discussed out in the open
street " — the writer was another missionary — " the pastor
heard of it from a Christian who was passing, and saw the
cluster of Muhammadans round the mother and her children,
It was touch-and-go with the child." These two, Sturdy and
Stolid, side by side in the photograph, are in all ways quite
unlike the typical Temple child; but the danger from which
they were delivered is as real, and perhaps in its way as
grave.

One of the sweetest of our little girls, a child with a
spiritual expression which strikes all who see her, came to
us through a young catechist who heard of her and
persuaded her people to let her come to Dohnavur. She
is an orphan ; and being " fair " and very gentle, needed
a mother's care. Her nearest relatives had families of
their own, and were not anxious for this addition to their
already numerous daughters ; and the little girl, feeling
herself unwanted, was fretting sadly. Then an offer came
to the relations — not made expressly in words, but implied —
by which they would be relieved of the responsibility of
the little niece's future. All would not have been straight
for the child, however, and they hesitated. The temptation
was great ; and in the end it is probable they would have
yielded, had not the catechist heard of it, and influenced

We know what her Heart is Saying

them to turn from temptation. It was the evening of our
Prayer-day when the little Pearl came ; and when we saw
the sweet little face, with the wistful, questioning eyes like
the eyes of a little frightened dog taken away alone among
strangers, and when we heard the story, and knew what
the child's fate might have been, then we welcomed her as
another Prayer-day gift. We do not look for gratitude
in this work ; who does ? But sometimes it comes of itself ;
and the grateful love of a child, like the grateful love of a
little affectionate animal lifted out of its terror and com-
forted, is something sweet and tender and very good to
know. The Pearl says little ; but her soft brown eyes look
up into ours with a trustful expression of peaceful
happiness ; and as she slips her little hand into ours and gives
it a tight squeeze, we know what her heart is saying,
and we are content.

Two more of these "others" are the two in the photograph
who are playing a pebble game. Their parents died leaving
them in the care of an aunt, a perfectly heartless woman
whose record was not of the best. She starved the children,
though she was not poor; and then punished them severely
when, faint with hunger, they took food from a kindly
woman of another caste. Finally she gave them to a
neighbour, telling her to dispose of them as she liked.

About this time our head worker, Ponnamal, was travelling
in search of a child of whom we had heard in a town near
Palamcottah. She could not find the child, and, tired and
discouraged, turned into the large Church Missionary Society
hall, where a meeting was being held to welcome our new
Bishop. As Ponnam-il was late, she sat at the back, and
could not hear what was going on ; so she gave herself up
to prayer for the little child whom she had not found,
and asked that her three days' journey might not be all
in vain.

6 65

Others

As she prayed in silence thus, another woman came in
and sat down at the back near Ponnamal. When Ponnamal
looked up, she saw it was a friend she had not met for years.
She began to tell her about her search for the child ; and
this led on to telling about the children in general, and the
work we were trying to do. The other had known nothing
of it all before ; but as she listened, a light broke on her
face, and she eagerly told Ponnamal how that same morning
she had come across a Hindu woman in charge of two little
girls. The Tamils when they meet, however casually, have
a useful habit of exchanging confidences. The woman had
told Ponnamal's friend what her errand was. Ponnamal's
talk about children in danger recalled the conversation of
the morning. In a few hours more Ponnamal was upon the
track of the Hindu woman and her two little charges. It
ended in the two little girls being saved.

PEBBLES.

CHAPTER IX

Old D^vai

CHAPTER IX

Old Devai

SHE has been called " Old DeVai " ever since we knew her,
twelve years ago; and she is still active in mind and
body. " As I was then, even so is my strength now
for war, both to go out and to come in," she would tell you
with a courageous toss of the old grey head. Her spirit at
least is untired.

We knew her first as a woman of character. One Sunday,
in our Tamil church, a sermon was preached upon the love
of the Father as compared with the love of the world. That
Sunday Devai went home and acted upon the teaching in
such fashion that she had to suffer from the scourge of the
tongue in her own particular world. But she went on her
way, unmoved by adverse criticism. Some years later, when
we were in perplexity as to how to set about our search
for children in danger of being given to temples, old DeVai
offered to help. She was peculiarly suitable, both in age
and in position, for this most delicate work ; and we accepted
her offer with thanksgiving. Since then she has travelled
far, and followed many a clue discovered in strange ways
and in strange company. Perhaps no one in South India
knows as much as DeVai knows about the secret system by
which the Temple altars are supplied with little living victims ;

Old Ddvai

but she has no idea of how to put her knowledge into shape
and express it in paragraph form. We learn most from her
when she least knows she is saying anything interesting.

When first we began the work, our great difficulty was,
as it is still, to get upon the track of the children before the
Temple women heard of them. Once they were known to
be available, Temple scouts appeared mysteriously alert ;
and it is doubly difficult to get a little child after negotiations
have been opened with the subtle Temple scout. How often
old Devai has come to us sick at heart after a long, fruitless
search and effort to save some little child who, perhaps,
only an hour before her arrival was carried off in triumph
by the Temple people ! " I pursued after the bandy, and I
saw it in the distance ; but swiftly went their bullocks, and
I could not overtake it. At last they stopped to rest, and
I came to where they were. But they smiled at me and
said : ' Did you ever hear of such a thing as you ask in
foolishness ? Is it the custom to give up a child, once it is
ours ? ' ' Sometimes a new story is invented on the spot.
" Did you not know it was my sister's child ; and I, her only
sister, having no child of my own, have adopted this one as
my own? Would you ask me to give up my own child,
the apple of my eye?" Oftener, however, the clue fails, and
all DeVai knows is that the little one is nowhere to be
found. Once she traced it straight to a Temple house, won
her way in, and pleaded with tears, offering all compensation
for expenses incurred (travelling and other) if only the
Temple woman would let her take the child. But no : "If it
dies, that matters little; but disgrace is not to be contemplated."
When all else fails, we earnestly ask that the little one in
danger may be taken quickly out of that polluted atmo-
sphere up into purer air; and it is startling to note how
solemnly the answer to that prayer has come in very many
instances.

The Knock at Night

The clue for which we are always on the watch is often
like a fine silk thread leading down into dark places where
we cannot see it, can hardly feel it; it is so thin a thread.
Sometimes, when we thought we held it securely, we have lost
it in the dark.

Sometimes it seems as if the Evil One, whose interest
in these little ones may be greater than we know, lays a
false clue across our path, and bewilders us by causing us
to spend time and strength in what appears to be a wholly
useless fashion. Once old DeVai was lured far out of
our own district in search of two children who did not even
exist. She had taken all precautions to verify the informa-
tion given, but a false address had baffled her ; and we can
only conclude that, for some reason unknown to us, but
well known to those whom we oppose, they were per-
mitted on that occasion to gain an advantage over us. We
made it a rule, after that will-of-the-wisp experience, that
any address out of our own district must be verified ; and
that the nearest missionary thereto, or responsible Indian
Christian, must be approached, before further steps are
taken. This rule has saved many a fruitless journey; but
also we cannot help knowing it has sometimes occasioned
delays which have had sad results. For distances are great
in India. DeVai herself lives two days' journey from us,
and her address is uncertain, as she sets off at a moment's
notice for any place where she has reason to think a child
in danger may be saved. Then, too, missionaries and respon-
sible Indian Christians are not everywhere. So that some-
times it is a case of choosing the lesser of two evils, and
choosing immediately.

Once in the night a knock came to DeVai's door. A man
stood outside, a Hindu known to her. "A little girl has
just been taken to the Temple of A., where the great festival
is being held. If you go at once you may perhaps get her."

Old D6vai

The place named was out of our jurisdiction ; but in such
cases Devai knows rules are only made to be broken. Off
she went on foot, got a bandy en route, reached the town
before the festival was over, found the house to which she
had been directed — a little shut-up house, doors and windows
all closed — managed, how we never knew, to get in, found a
young woman, a Temple woman from Travancore, with a little
child asleep on the mat beside her, persuaded her to slip
out of the house with the child without wakening anyone,
crept out of the town and fled away into the night, thankful
for the blessed covering darkness. The child was being
kept in that house till the Temple woman to whom she
was to be given produced the stipulated " Joy-gift," after
which she would become Temple property. Some delay in
its being given had caused that night's retention in the little
shut-up house. The child, a most lovable little girl, had been
kidnapped and disguised ; and the matter was so skilfully
managed, that we have never been able to discover even the
name of her own town. We only know she must have been
well brought up, for she was from the first a refined little
thing with very dainty ways. She and her little special
friend are sitting on the steps looking at Latha (Firefly), who
is blowing bubbles. The other little one has a similar but
different history. Her father brought her to us himself,
fearing lest she should be kidnapped by one related to her
who much wanted to have her. " I, being a man, cannot be
always with the child," he said, " and I fear for her."

On another occasion the clue was found through DeVai's
happening to overhear the conversation of two men in a
wood in the early morning. One said to the other something
about someone having taken " It " somewhere ; and Devai,
whose scent is keen where little " Its " are concerned, made
friends with the men, and got the information she wanted
from them. Careful work resulted in a little child's salva-

LATHA (FIREFLY) BLOWING BUBBLES.

" It "

tion ; but DeVai hardly dared believe it safe until she reached
Dohnavur. When that occurred we were all at church ; for
special services were being held in week-day evenings, and
old DeVai had to possess her soul in patience till we came
out of church. Then there was a rush round to the
nursery, and an eager showing of the "It." I shall never
forget the pang of disappointment and apprehension. Several
little ones had been sent to us who could not possibly live;
and the nurses had got overborne, and we dreaded another
strain for them. It was a tiny thing, three pounds and
three-quarters of pale brown skin and bone. Its face was
a criss-cross of wrinkles, and it looked any age. But " Man
looketh upon the outward appearance" would have been
assuredly quoted to us, regardless of context, had we ven-
tured upon a remark to old DeVai, who poured forth the
story of its salvation in vivid sentences. Next evening the
old grannie of the compound told us the baby could not
live till morning. She laid it on a mat and regarded it
critically, felt its pulses (both wrists), examined minutely
its eyes and the bridge of its nose : " No, not till morning.
Better have the grave prepared, for early morning will be
an inconvenient hour for digging." Others confirmed her
diagnosis, and sorrowfully the order was given and the
grave was dug.

But the baby lived till morning ; and though for two years
it needed a nurse to itself, and over and over again all but
left us, this baby has grown one of our healthiest : and now
when old Devai comes to see us she looks at it, and then
to Heaven, and sighs with gratitude.

CHAPTER X

Failures ?

CHAPTER X

Failures ?

,UT sometimes old DeVai brings us little ones who do
not come to stay. Failures, the world would call
them. Twice lately this has happened, and each
time unexpectedly ; for the babies had stories which seemed
to imply a promise of future usefulness. Surely such a
deliverance must have been wrought for something special,
we say to ourselves, and refuse to fear.

One dear little fat "fair" baby was brought to us as a
surprise, for we had not heard of her. It had seemed so
improbable that Devai could get her, that she had not written
to us to ask us to pray her through the battle, as she
usually does. The sound of the bullock-bells' jingle one
moonlight night woke us to welcome the baby. She had
travelled fifty miles in the shaky buUock-cart, and she was
only a few days old ; but she seemed healthy, and we had
no fears. "Ah, the Lord our God gave her to me, or never
could I have got her ! Her mother had determined to give
her to the Temple; and when I went to persuade her, she
hid the baby in an earthen vessel lest my eyes should see
her. But earthen pots cannot hide from the eyes of the
Lord. And here she is ! " The details, fished out of Devai
by dint of many questions, made it clear that in very truth

Failures ?

the Lord, to whom all souls belong, had worked on behalf
of this little one ; moving even Hindu hearts, as His brave
old servant pleaded, making it possible to break through
caste and custom, those prison walls of most cruel con-
vention, till even the Hindus said : " Let the Christian
have the babe ! " We do not know why she was taken.
She never seemed to sicken, but just left us ; perhaps she was
needed somewhere else, and Dohnavur was the way there.

The other meant even more to us, for she was our first
from Benares, the heart of this great Hinduism; and her
very presence seemed such a splendid pledge of ultimate
victory.

This little one was saved through a friend, a Wesleyan
missionary, who had interested her Indian workers in the
children. The baby's mother was a pilgrim from Benares,
and her baby had been born in the South. A Temple woman
had seen it and was eager to get it, for it was a child of
promise. Our friend's worker heard of this, and interposed.
The mother consented to give her baby to us. It was not
a case in which we dare have persuaded her to keep it; for
such babies are greatly coveted, and the mother was already
predisposed to give her child to the gods.

When we heard of this little one, old DeVai was with us.
She had only just arrived after a journey of two days with
a little girl, but she knew the perils of delay too well to
risk them now. " Let me go ! I will have some coffee, and
immediately start 1 " So off ^she went for five more days of
wearisome bullock-cart and train. But her face beamed
when she returned and laid a six-weeks-old baby in our
arms — a baby fair to look upon. We gathered round her
at once, and she lay and smiled at us all. Hardly ever have
we had so sweet a babe. But the smiling little mouth was
too pale a pink, and the beautiful eyes were too bright.
She had only been with us a month when we were startled

Passion-flowers

by the other-world look on the baby's face. We had seen
it before ; we recognised it, and our hearts sank within us.
That evening, as she lay in her white cradle, the waxy hands
folded in an unchildlike calm, she looked as if the angel of
Death had passed her as she slept, and touched her as he
passed.

She stayed with us for another month, and was nursed
day and night till more and more she became endeared to
us ; and then once more we heard the word that cannot be
refused, and we let her go. We laid passion-flowers about
her as she lay asleep. The smile that had left her little
face had come back now. "She came with a smile, and she
went with a smile," said one who loved her dearly; and the
flowers of mystery and glory spoke to us, as we stood and
looked. " Who for the joy that was set before Him . . .
endured." The scent of the violet passion-flower will always
carry its message to us. "Let us be worthy of the grief
God sends."

And oh that such experiences may make us more earnest,
more self -less in our service for these little ones ! Someone
has expressed this thought very tenderly and simply : —

Because of one small low-laid head, all crowned

With golden hair,
For evermore all fair young brows to me

A halo wear.
I kiss them reverently. Alas, I know

The pain I bear !

Because of dear but close-shut holy eyes

Of heaven's own blue,
All little eyes do fill my own with tears,

Whate'er their hue.
And, motherly, I gaze their innocent,

Clear depths into.

Failures ?

Because of little pallid lips, which once

My name did call,
No childish voice in vain appeal upon

My ears doth fall.
I count it all my joy their joys to share,

And sorrows small.

Because of little dimpled hands

Which folded lie,
All little hands henceforth to me do have

A pleading cry.
I clasp them, as they were small wandering birds,

Lured home to fly.

Because of little death-cold feet, for earth's

Rough roads unmeet,
I'd journey leagues to save from sin and harm

Such little feet.
And count the lowliest service done for them

So sacred — sweet.

But grief is almost too poignant a word for what is so
stingless as this. And yet God the Father, who gives the
love, understands and knows how much may lie behind two
words and two dates. " Given . . . Taken . . ." Only indeed
we do bless Him when the cup holds no bitterness of fear
or of regret. There is nothing ever to fear for the little
folded lambs. If only the veil of blinding sense might drop
from our eyes when the door opens to our cherished
little children, should we have the heart to toil so hard
to keep that bright door shut? Would it not seem
almost selfish to try ? But the case is different when
the child is not lifted lovingly to fair lands out of sight, but
snatched back, dragged back down into the darkness from
which we had hoped it had escaped. This work for the
children, which seems so strangely full of trial of its own

"Until He find it"

(as it is surely still more full of its own particular joy), has
held this bitterness for us, and yet the bitter has changed
to sweet ; and even now in our " twilight of short knowledge "
we can understand a little, and where we cannot we are
content to wait.

Four years ago, after much correspondence and effort, a
little girl was saved from Temple service in connection with
a famous Temple of the South from which few have ever
been saved. She had been dedicated by her father, and her
mother had consented. Devai got a paper signed by them
giving her up to us instead. But shortly after she left the
town, the father regretted the step he had taken, and
followed Devai, unknown to her. Alas, the child had not
been with us an hour before she was carried off.

For two years we heard nothing of her. Old Devai, who
was broken-hearted about the matter, tried to find what had
been done with her, but it was kept secret. She almost gave
up in despair.

At last information reached her that the child was in the
same town ; and that her father having died of cholera, the
mother and another little daughter were in a certain house
well known to her. She went immediately and found the
older child had not been given to the gods. Something of
her pleadings had lingered in the father's memory, and he
had refused to give her up. But the mother was otherwise
minded, and intended to give both children to the Temple.
Devai had been guided to go at the critical time of decision.
The mother was persuaded, and Devai returned with two
sheaves instead of one — and even that one she had hardly
dared to expect. Once more we were called to hold our gifts
with light hands. The younger of the welcome little two
was one of ten who died during an epidemic at Neyoor.
The elder one is with us still — a bright, intelligent child.

The only other one whom we have been compelled to give
6 81

Failures ?

up in this most hurting way was saved through friends on
the hills, who, before they sent the little child to us, believed
all safe as to claims upon her afterwards. She was a pretty
child of five, and we grew to love her very much ; for her
ways were sweet and gentle and very affectionate. Lala,
Lola, and Leela were a dear little trio, all about the same
age, and all rather specially interesting children.

But the father gave trouble. He was not a good man,
and we knew it was not love for his little daughter which
prompted his action. He demanded her back, and our friends
had to telegraph to us to send her home. It was not an easy
thing to do ; and we packed her little belongings feeling as if
we were moving blindly in a grievous dream, out of which
we must surely awaken.

There was some delay about a bandy, but at last it was
ready and standing at the door. We lifted the little girl into
it, put a doll and a packet of sweets in her hands, and gave
our last charges to those who were taking her up to the hills,
workers upon whom we could depend to do anything that
could yet be done to win her back again. Then the bandy
drove away.

But we went back to our room and asked for a great and
good thing to be done. We thought of little Lala, with her
gentle nature which had so soon responded to loving influence,
and we knew her very gentleness would be her danger now ;
for how could such a little child, naturally so yielding in dis-
position, withstand the call that would come, and the pressure
that had broken far stronger wills? So we asked that she
might either be returned to us soon or taken away from the
evil to come. A week passed and our workers returned with-
out her ; they evidently felt the case quite hopeless. But the
next letter we had from our friends told us the child was safe.

She had left us in perfect health, but pneumonia set in
upon her return to the colder air of the hills. She had been

Carried by the Angels

only a few days ill, and died very suddenly — died without
anyone near her to comfort her with soothing words about
the One to whom she was going. Even in the gladness
that she was safe now, there was the pitiful thought
of her loneliness through the dark valley; and we seemed
to see the little wistful face, and felt she would be so
frightened and shy and bewildered ; and we longed to know
something about those last hours. But one of the heathen
women who had been about her at the last told what she
knew, and our friends wrote what they heard. "She said
she was Jesus' child, and did not seem afraid. And she said
that she saw three Shining Ones come into the room where
she was lying, and she was comforted." Oh, need we ever
fear ? Little Lala had been with us for so short a time that
we had not been able to teach her much ; and so far as any
of us know, she had heard nothing of the ministry of angels.
We had hardly dared to hope she understood enough about
our Lord Himself to rest her little heart upon Him. But we
do not know everything. Little innocent child that she was,
she was carried by the angels from the evil to come.

Old Devai keeps a brave heart. When she comes to see
us, she cheers herself by nursing the cheerful little people she
brought to us, small and wailing and not very hopeful. She
is full of reminiscences on these occasions. "Ah," she will
say, addressing an astonished two-year-old, "the devil and
all his imps fought for you, my child ! " This is unfamiliar
language to the baby; but Devai knows nothing of our
modern ideas of education, and considers crude fact advisable
at any age. " Yes, he fought for you, my child. I was sitting
on the verandah of the house wherein you lay, and I was
preaching the Gospel of the grace of God to the women, when
five devils appeared. Yea, five were they, one older and four
younger. Men were they in outward shape, but within them
were the devils. I had nearly persuaded the women to let me

Failures ?

have you, my child ; and till they fully consented, I was filling
up the interval with speech, for no man shall shut my mouth.
And the women listened well, and my heart burned within
me — f or it was life to me to see them listening — when lo !
those devils came — yea, five, one older and four younger — sent
by their master to confound me. And they rose up against
me and turned me out, and told the women folk not to
listen ; and you — I should never get you, said they ; and so
it appeared, for with such is might, and their master waxes
furious when he knows his time is short. But the Lord on
high is mightier than a million million devils, and what are
five to Him? He rose up for me against them and discom-
fited them " — Devai does not go into secular particulars — " and
so you were delivered from the mouth of the lion, my child ! "
We are not anxious that our babies should know too
much ancient history. Enough for them that they are in
the fold—

I am Jesus' little lamb,

Happy all day long I am ;
He will keep me safe from harm,

For I'm His lamb —

is enough theology for two-year-olds ; but Devai's visits are
not so frequent as to make a deep impression, and the baby
thus addressed, after a long and unsympathetic stare, usually
scrambles off her knee and returns unscathed to her own
world.

CHAPTER XI

God Heard : God Answered

CHAPTER XI

God Heard : God Answered

OLD Devai, with her vivid conversation about the one old
devil and four younger, does not suggest a conciliatory
attitude towards the people of her land. And it may
be possible so to misinterpret the spirit of this book as to see
in it only something unappreciative and therefore unkind. So
it shall now be written down in sincerity and earnestness that
nothing of the sort is intended. The thing we fight is not
India or Indian, in essence or development. It is something
alien to the old life of the people. It is not allowed in the
Vedas (ancient sacred books). It is like a parasite which has
settled upon the bough of some noble forest-tree — on it, but
not of it. The parasite has gripped the bough with strong
and interlacing roots ; but it is not the bough.

We think of the real India as we see it in the thinker — the
seeker after the unknown God, with his wistful eyes. " The
Lord beholding him loved him," and we cannot help loving as
we look. And there is the Indian woman hidden away from
the noise of crowds, patient in her motherhood, loyal to the
light she has. We see the spirit of the old land there ; and it
wins us and holds us, and makes it a joy to be here to live for
India.

The true India is sensitive and very gentle. There is a

God Heard : God Answered

wisdom in its ways, none the less wise because it is not the
wisdom of the West. This spirit which traffics in children is
callous and fierce as a ravening beast ; and its wisdom de-
scendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. . . .
And this spirit, alien to the land, has settled upon it, and made
itself at home in it, and so become a part of it that nothing
but the touch of God will ever get it out. We want that
touch of God : " Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke."
That is why we write.

For we write for those who believe in prayer — not in the
emasculated modern sense, but in the old Hebrew sense, deep
as the other is shallow. We believe there is some connection
between knowing and caring and praying, and what happens
afterwards. Otherwise we should leave the darkness to cover
the things that belong to the dark. We should be for ever
dumb about them, if it were not that we know an evil
covered up is not an evil conquered. So we do the thing
from which we shrink with strong recoil ; we stand on the
edge of the pit, and look down and tell what we have seen,
urged by the longing within us that the Christians of England
should pray.

" Only pray ? " does someone ask ? Prayer of the sort we
mean never stops with praying. " Whatsoever He saith unto
you, do it," is the prayer's solemn afterword ; but the prayer
we ask is no trifle. Lines from an American poet upon what
it costs to make true poetry, come with suggestion here : —

Deem not the framing of a deathless lay

The pastime of a drowsy summer day.

But gather all thy powers, and wreck them on the verse

That thou dost weave. . . .

The secret wouldst thou know
To touch the heart or fire the blood at will ?

Let thine eyes overflow,

Let thy lips quiver with the passionate thrill.

" And call. ... So will I hear thee "

" Arise, cry out in the night ; in the beginning of the night
watches pour out thine heart like water before the Lord ; lift
up thine hands towards Him for the life of thy young
children ! "

The story of the children is the story of answered prayer.
If any of us were tempted to doubt whether, after all, prayer is
a genuine transaction, and answers to prayer no figment of
the imagination — but something as real as the tangible things
about us — we have only to look at some of our children. It
would require more faith to believe that what we call the
Answer came by chance or by the action of some unintelligible
combination of controlling influences, than to accept the
statement in its simplicity — God heard : God answered.

In October, 1908, we were told of two children whose mother
had recently died. They were with their father in a town
some distance from Dohnavur ; but the source from which our
information came was so unreliable that we hardly knew
whether to believe it, and we prayed rather a tentative
prayer : " If the children exist, save them." For three months
we heard nothing ; then a rumour drifted across to us that
the elder of the two had died in a Temple house. The
younger, six months old, was still with her father. On
Christmas Eve our informant arrived in the compound with
his usual unexpectedness. The father was near, but would
not come nearer because the following day being Friday (a
day of ill-omen), he did not wish to discuss matters concerning
the child ; he would come on Saturday. On Saturday he
came, carrying a dear little babe with brilliant eyes. She
almost sprang from him into our arms, and we saw she was
mad with thirst. She was fed and put to sleep, and hardly
daring yet to rejoice (for the matter was not settled with the
father), we took him aside and discussed the case with him.
There were difficulties. A Temple woman had offered a
large sum for the child, and had also promised to bequeath

God Heard : God Answered

her property to her. He had heard, however, that we had
little children who had all but been given to Temples,
and he had come to reconnoitre rather than to decide.

The position was explained to him. But the Temple meant
to him everything that was worshipful. How could anything
that was wrong be sanctioned by the gods? The child's mother
had been a devout Hindu ; and as we went deeper and deeper
into things with him, it was evident he became more and more
reluctant to leave the little one with us. " Her mother would
have felt it shame and eternal dishonour." We were in the
little prayer-room, a flowery little summer-house in the garden,
when this talk took place. On either side are the nurseries, and
playing on the wide verandahs were happy, healthy babes ; their
merry shouts filled the spaces in the conversation. Sometimes
a little toddling thing would find her way across to the prayer-
room, and break in upon the talk with affectionate caresses.
To our eyes everything looked so happy, so incomparably
better than anything the Temple house could offer, that it
was difficult to adjust one's mental vision so as to understand
that of the Hindu beside us, to whose thought all the happi-
ness was as nothing, because these babes would be brought up
without caste. In the Temple house caste is kept most care-
fully. If a Temple woman breaks the rules of her community
she is out-casted, excommunicated. " You do not keep caste !
you do not keep caste ! " the father repeated over and over
again in utter dismay. It was nothing to him that the babes
were well and strong, and as happy as the day was long ;
nothing to him that cleanliness reigned, so far as constant
supervision could ensure it, through every corner of the com-
pound. We did not profess to keep caste ; we welcomed every
little child in danger of being given to Temples, irrespective
altogether of her caste. All castes were welcome to us, for all
were dear to our Lord. This was beyond him; and he declared he
would never have brought his child to us, had he understood it

" Though it tarry, wait for it . . . '

before. " Let her die rather ! There is no disgrace in death."
As he talked and expounded his views, he argued himself
further and further away from us in spirit, until he became
disgusted with himself for ever having considered giving the
baby to us. All this time the baby lay asleep ; and as we
looked at the little face and noted the " mother- want," the
appealing expression of pitiful weariness even in sleep, it was
all we could do to turn away and face the almost inevitable
result of the conversation. Once the father, a splendid look-
ing man, tall and dignified, rose and stood erect in sudden
indignation. "Where is the babe? I will take her away and
do as I will with her. She is my child ! " We persuaded him
to wait awhile as she was asleep, and we went away to pray.
Together we waited upon God, whose touch turns hard rocks
into standing water, and flint-stone into a springing well,
beseeching Him to deal with that father's heart, and make it
melt and yield. And as we waited it seemed as if an answer
of peace were distinctly given to us, and we rose from our
knees at rest. But just at that moment the father went to
where his baby slept in her cradle, and he took her up and
walked away in a white heat of wrath.

The little one was in an exhausted condition, for she had
not had suitable food for at least three days. It was the time
of our land-winds, which are raw and cold to South Indian
people ; and it seemed that the answer of peace must mean
peace after death of cold and starvation. It would soon be
over, we knew ; twenty-four hours, more or less, and those
great wistful eyes would close, and the last cry would be cried.
But even twenty-four hours seemed long to think of a
child in distress, and her being so little did not make it easier
to think of her dying like that. So on Sunday morning I
shut myself up in my room asking for quick relief for her, or —
but this seemed almost asking too much — that she might be
given back to us. And as I prayed, a knock came at the door,

God Heard : God Answered

and a voice called joyously, " Oh, Amma ! Amma ! Come ! The
father stands outside the church; he has brought the baby
back!"

But the child was almost in collapse. Without a word he
dropped the cold, limp little body into our arms, and prostrated
himself till his forehead touched the dust. We had not time
to think of him, we hardly noted his extraordinary submission,
for all our thought was for the babe. There was no pulse to
be felt, only those far too brilliant eyes looked alive. We
worked with restoratives for hours, and at last the little limbs
warmed and the pulse came back. But it was a bounding,
unnatural pulse, and the restlessness which supervened con-
firmed the tale of the brilliant eyes — the little babe had been
drugged.

From that day on till our Prayer-day, January 6th, it
was one long, unremitting fight with death. We wrote to
our medical comrade in Neyoor, and described the symptoms,
which were all bad. He could give us little hope. Gradually
the brilliance passed from the eyes, and they became what
the Tamils call " dead." The film formed after which none
of us had ever seen recovery. Then we gathered round the
little cot in the room we call Tranquillity, and we gave the
babe her Christian name Vimala, the Spotless One ; for we
thought that very soon she would be without spot and
blameless, another little innocent in that happy band of
innocents who see His Face.

On the evening of the 5th, friends of our own Mission
who were with us seemed to lay hold for the life of the
child with such fresh earnestness and faith, that we our-
selves were strengthened. Next morning we believed we
saw a change in the little deathlike face, and that evening
we were sure the child's life was coming back to her.

It was not till then we thought of the father, who, after
signing a paper made out for him by our pastor, who is

" . . . Because it will surely come '

always ready to help us, had returned to his own town.
When we heard all that had occurred we saw how our God
had worked for us. It was not fear of his haby's death that
had moved the man to return to us. " What is the death
of a babe ? Let her die across my shoulders ! " He was not
afraid of the law. After all persuasions had failed, we had
tried threats : the thing he purposed to do was illegal. The
Collector (chief magistrate) would do justice. " What care
I for your Collector ? How can he find me if I choose to lose
myself ? How can you prove anything against me ? " And
in that he spoke the truth. There are ways by which the
intention of the law concerning little children can be most
easily and successfully circumvented. Our pleadings had
not touched him. "Is she not my child? Was her mother
not my wife? Who has the right to come between this
child of mine and me her father?" And so saying
he had departed without the slightest intention of coming
back again. But a Power with which he did not reckon had
him in sight ; and a Hand was laid upon him, and it bent
him like a reed. We hope some ray of a purer light than
he had ever experienced found its way into his darkened
soul, and revealed to him the sin of his intention. But we
only know that he left his child and went back to his own
town. God had heard : God had answered.

CHAPTER XII

To What Purpose ?

CHAPTER XII

To what Purpose ?

~7W" MONG the closest of our little children's friends is
A% one whose name I may not give, lest her work
.X m. should be hindered ; for in this work of saving the
little ones, though we have the sympathy of many, we
naturally have to meet the covert opposition of very many
more, and it is not well to give too explicit information as
to the centres of supply. This dear friend's help has been
invaluable. From the first she has stood by us, interesting
her friends, Indian and English, in the children, and stirring
them into practical co-operation. Then, when the babies
have been saved and had to be cared for and sent off, she
made nothing of the trouble, and above all she has never
been discouraged. Sometimes things have been difficult.
Some have doubted, and many have criticised, and even
the kindest have lost heart. This friend has never lost
heart.

For not all the chapters of the Temple children's story
can be written down and printed for everyone to read.
We think of the unwritten chapters, and remember how
often when the pressure was greatest the thought of that
undiscouraged comrade has been strength and inspiration.
No one except those who, in weakness and inexperience, have
7 97

To what Purpose ?

tried to do something not attempted before can understand
how the heart prizes sympathy just at the difficult times,
and how such brave and steadfast comradeship is a thing
that can never be forgotten.

Among the babies saved through this friend's influence was
one with a short but typical story.

The little mite was seen first in her mother's arms, and
the mother was standing by the wayside, as if waiting.
Something in her attitude and appearance drew the attention
of an Indian Christian, whom our friend had interested in
the work, and she got into conversation with the mother,
who told her that her husband had died a fortnight before
the baby's birth, and she, being poor though of good caste,
was much exercised about the little one's future. How could
she marry her properly? She had come to the conclusion
that her best plan would be to give her to the Temple. So
she was even then waiting till someone from a Temple house
would come and take her little girl.

The news that such a child is to be had soon becomes
known to those who are on the watch, and it is improbable
that the mother would have had long to wait. The Christian
persuaded her to give up the idea, and the little babe was
saved and sent to us. On the journey to Dohnavur a Temple
woman chanced to get into the carriage where the little
baby slept in its basket. There was nothing to tell who
she was ; and like the other women in the carriage, she was
greatly interested in its story. But presently it became evi-
dent that her interest was more than superficial. She looked
well at the baby and was quiet for a time ; then she said to
the Christian who was bringing it to us : "I see it is going to
be an intelligent child. Let me have it ; I will pay you." The
Christian of course refused, and asked her how she knew
it was going to be intelligent. "Look at its nose," said the
Temple woman. " See, here is money ! " and she offered it.

" He banged the door ! 5

" Let me have the baby ! You can tell your Missie Animal
it died in the train ! "

Sometimes our babies have to run greater risks than this
in their journeys south to us. The distances which have to
be covered by train and bullock-cart are great, and the
travelling tedious. And there are many delays and oppor-
tunities for difficulties to arise ; so that when we know a
baby is on its way to us we feel we want to wrap it round
in prayer, so that, thus invisibly enveloped, it will be protected
and carried safely all the way. Once a little child, travelling
to us from a place as distant, counting by time, as Rome is
from London, was observed by some Brahman men, who
happened to be at the far end of the long third-class
carriage. Our worker, who was alone with the child, noticed
the whispering and glances toward her little charge, and
wrapped it closer in its shawl, and, as she said, "looked out
of the window as if she were not at all afraid, and prayed
much in her heart." Presently a station was reached. The
language spoken there was not her vernacular, but she
understood enough to know something was being said about
the baby. Then an official appeared, and there was a cry
quite understandable to her : " A Brahman baby ! That
Christian there is kidnapping a Brahman baby ! " The official
stopped at the carriage door. She was pushed towards him
amidst a confused chatter, a crowd gathered at the door in a
moment, and someone shouted in Tamil, above the excited
clamour on the platform : " Pull her out ! A Christian with a
Brahman baby ! "

" Then did my heart tremble ! I held the baby tight in
my arms. The man in clothes said, ' Show it to me ! '
And he looked at its hands and he looked at its feet,
and he said : ' This is no child of yours ! ' But as I began
to explain to him, the train moved, and he banged the
door ; and I praised God ! "

To what Purpose ?

India is a land where strange things can be accomplished
with the greatest ease. As all went well it is idle to imagine
what might have been ; but we knew enough to be thankful.

Among the unwritten chapters is one which touches a
problem. There are some little children— often the most
valuable to the Temple women— who cannot live with us, but
can live with them, because the baby in the Temple house is
nursed by a foster-mother for the sake of merit, and thus it
is given its best chance of life ; whereas with us it is impos-
sible to get foster-mothers. Indian children of the castes
approved for the service are not, as a class, as robust as
others; the secluded lives of their mothers, and the rigid
rules pertaining to widows (girl-children born after the
mother becomes a widow are, as has been seen, in special
danger), partly account for this; and in other cases there are
other reasons. Whatever the cause, however, the effect is
manifest. The baby is seldom the little bundle of content
of our English nurseries. It may become so later on, if all
goes well. Often it lives upon its birth-strength for four
months, or less, and then slips away. We have often hesi-
tated about taking such babies; and then we have found
that by refusing one who is likely to die we have discouraged
those who were willing to help us, and the next baby in danger
has been taken straight to the house where its welcome was
assured. So we have hardly ever dared to refuse, and we have
taken little fragile things whose days we knew were numbered
unless a foster-mother could be found, for it seemed to us that
death with us was better than life with the Temple people ;
and also we have not dared to risk losing the next, who might
be healthy. " One dies, one lives," say the Temple women in
their wisdom, and take all who are suitable in caste and in
appearance. " She will be « fair,' " or, " She will be intelligent,"
settles the matter for. them. They give the baby a chance :
should we do less ?

100

" To what Purpose ? "

One night I woke suddenly with the feeling of someone
near, and saw, standing beside my bed out on the verandah,
the friend who has sent us so many little ones. She had
something wrapped in a shawl in her arms, and as she moved
the shawl a thin cry smote me with a fear, for a baby who
has come to stay does not cry like that.

It was a dear little baby, one of the type the Temple
women prize, and will take so much trouble to rear. The little
head was finely formed, and the tiny face, in its minute per-
fection of feature, looked as if some fairy had shaped it out of
a cream rose-petal. Alas, there was that look we know so well
and fear so much — that look of not belonging to us, the
elsewhere, other-world look. But we could not do this work
at all, we would not have the heart to do it, if we did not hope.
So we go on hoping.

The baby filled the next half -hour, for a thing so small can
be hungry and say so ; and together we heated the water and
made the food, till, satisfied at length that her little charge
was comfortable, our friend lay down to rest. " Jesus there-
fore being weary with His journey, sat thus on the well."
There is something in the utter weariness after a long, hot
journey, ending with seven hours in a bullock-cart over rough
tracks by night, which always recalls that word of human
tiredness. How I wished that the morning were not so near
as I saw my friend asleep at last ! A few hours later she was
on her homeward way, and we were left with our hopes and
our fears, and the baby.

For three weeks we hoped against fear, till there was no
room left for any more hope, or for anything but prayer that
the child might cease to suffer. And after a month of struggle
for life, the tiny, tossing thing lay still.

" To what purpose is this waste ? " Was it strange that
the question came again to ourselves, and to others too ? Our
dear friend's toilsome travelling — a journey equal in expendi-

101

To what Purpose ?

ture of time to one from London to Vienna and back again,
and very much more exhausting, the faithful nurse's patience,
the little baby's pain ! And all the love that had grown through
the weeks, and all the efforts that had failed, the very train
ticket and bandy fare — was it all as water spilt on the
ground ? Was it waste ?

We knew in our hearts it was not. The dear little babe
was safe ; and it might be that our having taken her, though
she was so very delicate, would result in another, a healthy
child, being saved, who, if she had been refused, would never
have been brought. This hope comforted us ; and we prayed
definitely for its fulfilment, and it was fulfilled. For shortly
after that little seed had been sown in death, information came
from the same source through which she had been saved, that
another child was in danger of being adopted by Temple
women ; and this information would not have been given to
our friend had the first child been refused. Nundinie we called
this little gift : the name means Happiness.

Sometimes in moments of depression and disappointment
we go for change of air and scene to the Premalia nursery ;
and the baby Nundinie, otherwise Dimples, of whom more
afterwards, comes running up to us with her welcoming smile
and outstretched arms; while others, with stories as full of
comfort, tumble about us, and cuddle, and nestle, and pat
us into shape. Then we take courage again, and ask forgive-
ness for our fears. It is true our problems are not always
solved, and perhaps more difficult days are before ; but we will
not be afraid. Sometimes a sudden light falls on the way,
and we look up and still it shines : and what can we do but
"follow the Gleam"?

102

CHAPTER XIII

A Story of Comfort

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CHAPTER XIII

A Story of Comfort

AVEONG the stories of comfort is one that belongs to
our merry little Seela. She is bigger now than
when the despairing photographer broke thirteen
plates in the vain attempt to catch her ; but she is still
most elusive and alluring, a veritable baby, though over
two years old. Some months ago, the Iyer measured her,
and told her she was thirty-two inches of mischief. For
weeks afterwards, when asked her name, she always replied
with gravity, " Terty-two inses of mistef."

All who have to do with babies know how different
they can be in disposition and habits. There is the shop-
window baby, who shows all her innocent wares at once
to everyone kind enough to look. She is a charming
baby. And there is the little wild bird of the wood, who
will answer your whistle politely, if you know how to
whistle her note ; but she will not trust herself near you
till she is sure of you. Seela is that sort of baby. We
have watched her when she has been approached by some
unfamiliar presence, and seen her summon all her baby
dignity to keep her from breaking into tears of over-
whelming shyness. Give her time to observe you from
under long, drooping lashes ; give her time to make sure

105

A Story of Comfort

— then the mischief will sparkle out, and something of
the real child. But only something, never all, till you
become a relation; with those who are only acquaintances
Seela, like Bala, has many reserves.

Seela's joy is to be considered old and allowed to go
to the kindergarten. She takes her place with the bigger
babies, and tries to do all she sees them do. Sometimes
a visitor looks in, and then Seela, naturally, will do nothing ;
but if the visitor is wise and takes no notice, she will
presently be rewarded by seeing the eager little face light
up again, and the fat hands busily at work. Seela is not
supposed to be learning very seriously ; but she seems to
know nearly as much as some of the older children, and
her quaint attempts at English are much appreciated.
Seela has her faults. She likes to have her own way, and
once was observed to slap severely an offender almost
twice her own size ; but on the whole she is a peaceful
little person, beloved by all the other babies, both senior
and junior. Her great ambition is to follow Chellalu into
all possible places of mischief. Anything Chellalu can do
Seela will attempt; and as she is more brave than steady
on her little feet, she has many a narrow escape. Her
latest escapade was to follow her reckless leader in an
attempt to walk round the top of the back of a large
armchair, the cane rim of which is a slippery slant, two
inches wide.

On the morning of her arrival, not liking to leave her
even for a few minutes, I carried her to the early tea-
table, when she saw the Iyer and smiled her first smile to
him. From that day on she has been his loyal little
friend. At first his various absences from home perplexed
her. She would toddle off to his room and hunt every-
where for him, even under his desk and behind his waste-
paper basket, and then she returned to the dining-room

106

Table Manners

with a puzzled little face. " Iyer is not ! " " Where is he,
Seela ? " " Gone to Heaven ! " was her invariable reply.
When he returned from that distant sphere she never
displayed .the least surprise. That is not our babies' way.
She calmly accepted him as a returned possession ; stood
by his chair waiting for the invitation, " Climb up " ; climbed
up as if he had never been away — and settled down to
bliss.

Part of this bliss consists in being supplied with morsels
of toast and biscuit and occasional sips of tea. Sometimes
there is that delicious luxury, a spoonful of the unmelted
sugar at the bottom of the cup. For Seela is a baby after
all, and does not profess to be like grown-up people who
do not appreciate nice things to eat, being, of course, en-
tirely superior to food ; but, excitable little damsel as she
is in all other matters, her table manners are most correct,
and she shows her appreciation of kind attentions in
characteristic fashion. A smile, so quick under the black
lashes that only one on the look-out for it would see it,
a sudden confiding little nestle closer to the giver — these are
her only signs of pleasure ; and if no notice is taken of
her, she sits in silent patience. Sometimes, if politeness be
mistaken for indifference, a shadow creeps into her eyes,
a sort of pained surprise at the obtuseness of the great;
but she rarely makes any remark, and never points or
asks, as the irrepressible Chellalu does in spite of all our
admonitions. If, however, Seela is being attended to and
fed at judicious intervals, and she knows the intention is
to feed her comfortably, then her attitude is different.
She feels a reminder will be acceptable ; and as soon as
she has disposed of a piece of biscuit, she quietly holds up
an empty little hand, and glances fearlessly up to the face
that looks down with a smile upon her. This little silent,
empty hand, held up so quietly, has often spoken to us

107

A Story of Comfort

of things unknown to our little girl ; and as if to enforce
the lesson, the other babies, to our amusement, apparently
noticing the gratifying result of Seela's upturned hand,
began to hold up their little hands with the same silent
expectancy, till all round the table small hands were
raised in perfect silence, by hopeful infants of observant
habits and strong faith.

Mala, the rather stolid-looking little girl to the right of
the photograph, is Seela's elder sister. She is not so square-
faced as the photograph shows her, and she is much more
interesting. This little one seems to us to have in some
special sense the grace of God upon her; for her nursery
life is so happy and blameless and unselfish, that we rarely
have to wish her different in anything. Her coming, with
little Seela's, is one of the very gladdest of our Overweights
of Joy.

We heard of the little sisters through a mission school-
master, who — knowing that they had been left motherless,
and that a Hindu of good position had obtained something
equivalent to powers of guardianship, and thus empowered
had placed them with a Temple woman — was most anxious
to save them, and wrote to us; and, as he expressed it,
" also earnestly and importunately prayed the benign British
Government to intervene."

The Collector to whom the petition was sent was a friend
of ours. He knew about the nursery work, and was ready
to do all he could ; but he did not want a disturbance with
the Caste and Temple people, and so advised us to try to
get the children privately. We sent our wisest woman-
worker, Ponnamal, to the town, and she saw the principal
people concerned ; but they entirely refused to give up the
children. The man who had adopted them had got his
authority from the local Indian sub-magistrate ; and con-
tended that as the Government had given them to him,

108

"And he said. . . . But God said"

no one had any right to take them from him ; " and even if
the Government itself ordered me to give them up, I never
will. I will never let them go." This in Tamil is even more
explicit: "The hold by which I hold them I will never let
go." Ponnamal returned, weary in mind and in body, after
three days of travelling and effort ; she had caught a glimpse
of the baby, and the little face haunted her. The elder child
was reported very miserable, and she had seen nothing of
her. The guardian, of course, had not dealt with her
direct; but she heard he had taken legal advice, and was
sure of his position. There was nothing hopeful to report.
Once again we tried, but in vain. By this time a new bond
had been formed, for the guardian had become attached to
little Seela, and spent his time, so we heard, in playing with
her. He let it be known that nothing would ever make
him give her up. " She is in my hand, and my hand will
never let go."

Then suddenly news came that he was dead. The baby
had sickened with cholera. He had nursed her and con-
tracted the disease. In two days he had died. He had
been compelled to let go.

Then the feeling of all concerned changed completely.
It hardly needed the Collector's order, given with the
utmost promptitude, to cause the Temple woman to give
the children up. To the Indian mind, quick to see the
finger of God in such an event, the thing was self-evident.
An unseen Power was at work here. Who were they that
they should withstand it? A telegram told us the children
were safe, and next day we had them here.

The baby was happy at once ; but the elder little one, then
a child of about three and a half, was very sorrowful. She
was so pitifully frightened, too, that at first we could do
nothing with her ; and there was a look in her eyes that
alarmed us, it was so distraught and unchildlike. "My

109

A Story of Comfort

mother did her best for them," wrote the kind schoolmaster
to whose house the children had been taken when the Temple
woman gave them up ; " but the elder one has fever. She is
always muttering to herself, and can neither stand nor sit."
She could stand and sit now, only there was the " muttering,"
and the terrible look of bewilderment worse than pain. For
days it was a question with us as to whether she would ever
recover perfectly. That first night we had to give her
bromide, and she woke very miserable. Next day she stood
by the door waiting for her mother, as it seemed ; for under
her breath she was constantly whispering, " Amma ! Amma ! "
(" Mother ! Mother ! ") She never cried aloud, only sobbed
quietly every now and then. She would not let us touch
her, but shrank away terrified if we tried to pet her. All
through the third day she sat by the door. This was better
than the weary standing, but pitiful enough. On the morning
of the fourth day she sat down again for a long watch ; but
once when her little hand went up to brush away a tear,
we saw there was a toy in it, and that gave us hope. That
night she went to bed with a doll, an empty tin, and a ball
in her arms; and the next day she let us play with her in
a quiet, reserved fashion. Next morning she woke happy.

The babies teach us much, and sometimes their unconscious
lessons illuminate the deeper experiences of life. One such
illumination is connected in my mind with the little trellised
verandah, shown in the photograph, of the cottage used as a
nursery when Mala and Seela came to us.

It was the hour between lights, and five babies under two
years old were waiting for their supper — Seela, Tara, and Evu
(always a hungry baby), Kuhinie, usually irrepressible, but
now in very low spirits, and a tiny thing with a face like
a pansy — all five thinking longingly of supper. These five
had to wait till the fresh milk came in, as their food was
special; that evening the cows had wandered home with

110

Teachers — unawares

more than their usual leisureliness from their pasture out
in the jungle, and so the milk was late.

The babies, who do not understand the weary ways of
cows, disapproved of having to wait, and were fractious.
To add to their depression, the boy whose duty it was to
light the lamps and lanterns had been detained, and the
trellised verandah was dark. So the five fretful babies
made remarks to each other, and threw their toys about
in that exasperated fashion which tells you the limits of
patience have been passed ; and the most distressed began
to whimper.

At this point a lantern was brought and set behind me,
so that its light fell upon the discarded toys, miscellaneous
but beloved — a china head long parted from its body, one
whole new doll, a tin with little stones in it, a matchbox,
and other sundries. If anything will comfort them, their
toys will, I thought, as I directed their attention to the tin
with its pleasant rattling pebbles, and the other scattered
treasures on the mat. But the babies looked disgusted. Toys
were a mockery at that moment. Evu seized the china head
and flung it as far as ever she could. Tara sat stolid, with
two fingers in her mouth. Seela turned away, evidently
deeply hurt in her feelings, and the other two cried. Not
one of them would find consolation in toys.

Then the pansy-faced baby, Prasie, pointed out to the
bushes, where something dangerous, she was quite sure, was
moving ; and she wailed a wail of such infectious misery that
all the babies howled. And one rolled over near the lantern
which was on the floor behind me, and for safety's sake I
moved it, and its light fell on my face. In a moment all
five babies were tumbling over me with little exclamations
of delight, and they nestled on my lap, caressing and
content.

Are there not evenings when our toys have no power to

111

A Story of Comfort

please 01 soothe? There is not any rest in them or any
comfort. Then the One whom we love better than all His
dearest gifts comes and moves the lantern for us, so that our
toys are in the shadow but His face is in the light. And
He makes His face to shine upon us and gives us peace.

" For Thou, O Lord my God, art above all things best ; . . .
Thou alone most sufficient and most full ; Thou alone most
sweet and most comfortable.

" Thou alone most fair and most loving ; Thou alone most
noble and most glorious above all things ; in whom all things
are at once and perfectly good, and ever have been and
shall be.

" And therefore whatever Thou bestowest upon me beside
Thyself, or whatever Thou revealest or promisest concerning
Thyself, so long as I do not see or fully enjoy Thee, is too
little, and fails to satisfy me.

" Because, indeed, my heart cannot truly rest nor be entirely
contented unless it rest in Thee, and rise above all Thy gifts
and all things created.

" When shall I fully recollect myself in Thee, that through
the love of Thee I may not feel myself but Thee alone, above
all feeling and measure in a manner not known to all ? "

112

CHAPTER XIV

Pickles and Puck

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Pickles and Puck

"71TMMA! Amma!" then in baby Tamil, " Salala has
/ \ come ! " And one of the most enticing of the little
L ' \. interruptions to a steady hour's work scrambles
over the raised doorstep, tripping and tumbling in her
eagerness to get in. Now she is staggering happily about
the room on fat, uncertain feet. Upsets are nothing to Sarala.
She shakes herself, rubs a bumped head, smiles if you smile
down at her, and picks herself up with a sturdy independence
that promises something for her future. She has travelled
to-day, stopping only to visit her Prema Sittie, a long way
across the field all by herself. She has braved tumbles and
captures, for her nurse may any minute discover her flight ;
and even now, safe in port, she keeps a wary eye on the
door which opens on the nursery side of the compound. If
she thinks I am about to suggest her departure, she imme-
diately engages me in some interest of her own. She has
ways and wiles unknown to any baby but herself ; and if all
seems likely to fail, she sits down on the floor, and first puts
out her lower lip as far as it will go, and then springs up,
climbs over you, clings with all four limbs at once, and buries
her curly tangle deep into your neck. But if the case is
hopeless, she sits down on the floor again and digs her small

115

Pickles and Puck

fists into her eyes, in silent indignation and despair. Then
conies a howl impossible to smother, and at last such bitter
bursts of woe as nothing short of dire necessity can force
you to provoke. This is Sarala, one of the most affectionate,
most wilful, most winsome of all the babies. She is truthful.
She has just this moment pulled a drawing-pin out of its place,
which happened to be within reach, and her solemn " Aiyo ! '
(Alas !) " Look, Amma ! " shows she feels she has sinned, but
wants to confess. Life will have many a battle for this
baby; but surely if she is truthful and loving, and we are
loving and wise, the Lord who has redeemed her will carry
her through.

Her first great battle royal was with the new Sittie,* who
immediately upon arrival loved the babies. The battle was
about Sarala's evening meal, which she refused to take from
the new Sittie because she had offended her small majesty
a few minutes before by allowing another baby to share the
lap of which Sarala wished to have complete possession ; and
the baby had crawled off disgusted with the ways of such
a Sittie.

As a rule we avoid collisions at bedtime. The day should
end peacefully for babies ; but the contest once begun had to
be carried through, for Sarala is not a baby to whom it is wise
to give in where a conflict of wills is concerned. Next morn-
ing it was evident she remembered all about it. When the
new Sittie (now called Pr&na Sittie by the children)! came to
the nursery, Sarala hurried off and would have nothing to do
with her. From the distance of the garden she would catch
sight of her advancing form, and retreat round a corner.
Sometimes if Pre"ma Sittie sat down on the floor and fondled
another baby, Sarala would crawl up from behind, put her arms
round her neck, and even begin to sit down on her knee; but
if her Sittie made the first advance, she was instantly repelled.
* Miss Lucy Ross. t "Prema" means Beloved.

116

Twins

This continued for a fortnight; and as Sarala was only a year
and eight months old at the time, a fortnight's memory rather
astonished us. In the end she forgot, and now there are no
more devoted friends than Prema Sittie and Sarala.

But it was the other Sittie, Piria Sittie by name,* who
first made Sarala's acquaintance. She and I went to Neyoor
together when the branch nursery was there ; and as the new
nursery was almost ready for the babies, we lightened the
immense undertaking of removal by carting off whatever we
could of furniture and infants. Sarala has eyes which can
smile bewitchingly, and a voice which can coo with delicious
affection ; but those sweet eyes can look stormy, and cooing
is a sound remote from Sarala's powers in opposite directions ;
so we wondered, as we packed her into the bandy, what
would happen that night. If we had known Sarala better
we should not have wondered. All this child wants to make
her good is someone to hold on to. She woke frequently
during the night, for we were not entirely comfortable, wedged
sideways and close as herrings in a barrel. But all she did
when she awoke was to push a soft little arm round either
one or other of us, and cuddle as close as she possibly could ;
the least movement on our part, however, she deeply resented
and feared. A limpet on a rock is nothing to this baby. Her
very toes can cling.

Sarala's private name is Pickles. Her twin in mischief is
Puck, and she, too, is fond of paying visits to the bungalow.
But she always comes as a surprise ; she never announces
herself. You are busy with your back to the door when that
curious feeling, a sense of not being quite alone, comes over
you, and you turn and see an elfish thing, very still and small
and shy, but with eyes so comical that Puck is the only
possible name by which she could be called. Seen unexpectedly,
playing among the flowers in a fragment of green garment
* Miss Mabel Wade, who joined us November 15, 1907. " Piria," like
" Prema," means Beloved.

117

Pickles and Puck

washed to the softness of a tulip leaf, you feel she only needs
a pair of small wings and a wand to be entirely in character.

Puck has none of Pickles' faults, and a good many of her
virtues. She is a most good-tempered little person, loving
to be loved, but equally delighted that others should share the
petting. She gives up to everybody, and smiles her way
through life ; such a comical little mouth it is, to match the
comical eyes. All she ever asks with insistence is somewhere
to play. Bereft of room to play, Puck might become disagree-
able, though a disagreeable Puck is something unimaginable.
Yesterday it was needful to keep her in the shade ; and as
a special policeman-nurse could not be told off to keep watch
over her, she was tied by a long string to the nursery door.
At first she was sorely distressed ; but presently the comic side
struck her, and she sat down and began to tie herself up more
securely. If they do such things at all they should do them
better, she seemed to think. And this is Puck all through.
She will find the laugh hidden in things, if she can. Sometimes
in her eagerness to make everybody as happy as she is herself
she gets into serious trouble. She was hardly able to walk
when she was discovered comforting a crying infant by taking
a bottle of milk from an older babe (who, according to her
thinking, had had enough) and giving it to the younger one
who seemed to need it more. What the older baby said is
not recorded.

Puck in trouble is a pitiful sight. She tries not to give
in to feelings of depression. She screws her smiling lips tight,
twists her face into a pucker, and shuts her eyes till you only
see two slits marked by the curly eyelashes. But if her
emotions are too much for her she gives herself up to them
thoroughly. There is no whining or whimpering or sulking ;
she wails with a wail that rivals Pickles' howl. "What an
awful child ! " remarked a visitor one morning, in a very
shocked tone, as she went the round of the nurseries and came

118

Disgraced Dohnavur

upon Puck on the floor abandoned to grief. We wondered
if our friend knew how much more awful most babies are,
and we wished the usually charming Puck had chosen
some other moment to disgrace herself and us. But no, there
she sat, her two small fists crushed over her mouth — for
we insist that when the babes feel obliged to cry, they shall
smother the sound thereof as much as may be — and the visitor
retired, feeling, doubtless, thankful the awful child was not
hers. But Puck's griefs are of short duration. Ten minutes
later she was climbing the chain from which the swing hangs,
trying to fit her little toes into the links, and laughing, with
the tears still wet on her cheeks, because the chain shook so
that she could not climb it properly, though she tried it
valiantly, hand over head, like a dancing bear on a pole.
Puck's Guardian Angel, like Chellalu's, must be ever in
attendance.

119

CHAPTER XV

The Howler

CHAPTER XV

The Howler

PICKLES and Puck at their worst and both together
are nothing to the Howler in her separate capacity.
We called her the Howler because she howled.

We heard of her first through our good Pakium, who,
during a pilgrimage round the district, paid a visit to the
family of which she was the youngest member. "She lay
in her cradle asleep" — Pakium kindled over it — "like an
innocent little flower, and she once opened her eyes — such
eyes ! — and smiled up in my face. Oh, like a flower is the
babe ! " And much speech followed, till we pictured a tender,
flower-like baby, all sweetness and smiles.

Her story was such as to suggest fears, though on the
surface things looked safe. Her grandfather, a fine old man,
head of the house, was sheltering the baby and her mother
and three other children ; for the son-in-law had " gone to
Colombo," which in this case meant he desired to be free
from the responsibilities of wife and family. He had left no
address, and had not written after his departure. So the old
man had the five on his hands. A Temple woman belonging
to a famous South-country Temple, knowing the circum-
stances, had made a flattering offer for the baby, then just
three months old. The grandfather had refused ; but the

123

The Howler

grandmother was religious, and she felt the pinch of the
extra five, and secretly influenced her daughter, so that it
was probable the Temple woman would win if she waited
long enough. And Temple women know how to wait.

A year passed quietly. We had friends on the watch,
and they kept us informed of what was going on. The
idea of dedication was becoming gradually familiar to the
grandfather, and he was ill and times were hard. But still
we could do nothing, for to himself and his whole clan
adoption by Christians was a far more unpleasant alternative
than Temple-dedication. After all, the Temple people never
break caste.

Once a message reached us : " Send at once, for the
Temple women are about to get the baby"; and we sent,
but in vain. A few weeks later a similar message reached
us ; and again the long journey was made, and again there
was the disappointing return empty-handed. It seemed use-
less to try any more.

About that time a comrade in North Africa, Miss Lilias
Trotter, sent us her new little booklet, "The Glory of the
Impossible." As we read the first few paragraphs and
roughly translated them for our Tamil fellow-workers, such
a hope was created within us that we laid hold with fresh
faith and a sort of quiet, confident joy. And yet, when we
wrote to our friends who were watching, their answer was
most discouraging. The only bright word in the letter was
the word "Impossible."

"Far up in the Alpine hollows, year by year, God works
one of His marvels. The snow-patches lie there, frozen
into ice at their edges from the strife of sunny days and
frosty nights ; and through that ice-crust come, unscathed,
flowers in full bloom.

" Back in the days of the bygone summer the little
soldanella plant spread its leaves wide and flat on the

124

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The Glory of the Impossible

ground to drink in the sun-rays ; and it kept them stored
in the root through the winter. Then spring came and
stirred its pulses even below the snow-shroud. And as it
sprouted, warmth was given out in such strange measure
that it thawed a little dome of the snow above its head.
Higher and higher it grew, and always above it rose the
bell of air till the flower-bud formed safely within it ; and
at last the icy covering of the air-bell gave way and let
the blossom through into the sunshine, the crystalline tex-
ture of its mauve petals sparkling like the snow itself,
as if it bore the traces of the fight through which it had
come.

"And the fragile things ring an echo in our hearts that
none of the jewel-like flowers nestled in the warm turf on
the slopes below could waken. We love to see the impossible
done, and so does God."

These were the sentences which we read together. To
the South Indian imagination Alpine snow is something
quite inconceivable ; but the picture on the cover and snow-
scene photographs helped, and the Indian mind is ever
quick to apprehend the spiritual, so the booklet did its
work.

"We have two seasons here, the wet and the dry. The dry
is subdivided into hot, hotter, and hottest ; but the wet stands
alone. It is a time when the country round Dohnavur is
swamp or lake according to the level of the ground ; and we
do not expect visitors — the heavy bullock-carts sink in the
mud and make the way too difficult. If a letter had come
just then asking us to send for the baby, we should certainly
have tried to go ; but no letter came, and it was then, when
everything said, "Impossible," that suddenly all resistance
gave way and the grandfather said : " Let her go to the
Christians."

We were sitting round the dinner-table one wet evening,

125

The Howler

thinking of nothing more exciting than the flying and creep-
ing creatures which insisted upon drowning themselves in our
soup, when the jingle of bullock-bells made us look at each
other incredulously ; and then, without waiting to wonder
who it was, we all ran out and met Rukma running in from
the wet darkness. " It's it ! it's it ! " she cried, and danced
into the dining-room, decorum thrown to the pools in the
compound. " Look at it ! " and we saw a bundle in her arms.
And it howled.

From that day on for nearly a week it continued consis-
tently to howl. We called the little thing Naveena, for the
name means " new " ; and it was our nearest approach to Solda-
nella, which we should have called her if we did not keep to
Indian names for our babies. New and fresh as that little
flower of joy, so was our new little gift to us, a new token
for good. But flowers and howlers — the words draw their
little skirts aside and refuse to touch each other. From
certain points of view, in this case as so often, the sublime
and the ridiculous were much too close together. The very
crows made remarks about the baby when she wakened the
morning with her howls. Mercifully for the family's nerves
she fell asleep at noon ; but as soon as she woke she began
again, and went on till both she and we were exhausted.
There were no tears, the big dark eyes were only entirely
defiant; and the baby stood straight up with her hands
behind her back and her mouth open — that was all. But
we knew it meant pure misery, though expressed so very
aggressively; and we coaxed and petted when she would
allow us, and won her confidence at last, and then she
stopped.

It took months to tame the little thing. She had been
allowed to do exactly as she liked; for she was her grand-
father's pet, and no one might cross her will. We had to
go very gently; but eventually she understood and became

126

PAKIUM AND NAVEENA.

Friends

a dear little girl, reserved but very affectionate, and scampish
to such a degree that Chellalu, discerning a congenial spirit,
decided to adopt her as " her friend."

This fact was announced to us at the babies' Bible-class,
when the word "friend," which was new to the babies, was
being explained. It has four syllables in Tamil, and the
babies love four-syllabled words. They were rolling this
juicy morsel under their tongues with sounds of apprecia-
tion, when Chellalu pointed across to Naveena, and with an
air of possession remarked, "She is my friend." The other
babies nodded their heads, "Yes, Naveena is Chellalu's
friend ! " Naveena looked flattered and very pleased.

These friends in a kindergarten class are rather terrible.
They are always separated — as the Tamil would say, if one
sits north the other sits south — but even so there are means
of communication. This morning, passing the door of the
kindergarten room, I looked in and saw something not
included in the time-table. We have a little yellow bell-
flower here which grows in great profusion ; and some vandal
taught the babies to blow it up like a little balloon, and then
snap it on the forehead. The crack it makes is delightful.
We do not like this game, and try to teach the babies to
respect the pretty flowers ; but there are so many sins in the
world, that we do not make another by actually forbidding
it: we trust to time and sense and good feeling to help us.
So it comes to pass that the worst scamps indulge in this
game without feeling too guilty ; and now I saw Chellalu
with a handful of the flowers, cracking them at intervals, to
the distraction of the teacher and the delight of all the class.
One other was cracking flowers too. It was Naveena, and
there was a method in her cracks. When Rukma turned to
Chellalu, Naveena cracked her flower. When she turned to
Naveena, then Chellalu cracked hers. How they had eluded
the search which precedes admission to the kindergarten

127

The Howler

nobody knew; but there they were, each with a goodly handful
of bells. At a word from Rukma, however, they handed them
over to her with an indulgent smile, and even offered to
search the other babies in case they had secreted any; and
as I left the room the lesson continued as before, but the
friends' intention was evident : they had hoped to be turned
out together.

128

CHAPTER XVI

The Neyoor Nursery

o:
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CHAPTER XVI

The Neyoor Nursery

" The roads are rugged, the precipices steep ; there may be
feelings of dizziness on the heights, gusts of wind, peals of thunder,
nights of awful gloom. Fear them not !

" There are also the joys of sunlight, flowers such as are not
in the plain, the purest of air, restful nooks, and the stars smile
thence like the eyes of God." — PEBE DlDON (translated by Rev.
Arthur Gr. Nash}.

AND now for a chapter of history. We had not been
long at the new work before we discovered difficul-
ties unimagined before, and impossible to describe
in detail. Some of these concerned the health of the younger
children ; and eventually it seemed best to move the infants'
nursery to within reach of medical help, and keep the bigger
babies and elder children, whose protection was another grave
anxiety, with us at Dohnavur.

Shortly before that time we had been brought into
touch with the medical missionaries at Neyoor, in South
Travancore. The senior missionary, Dr. Fells, was about to
retire ; but his successor, Dr. Bentall, cordially agreed to let
us rent a little house in the village and fill it with babies,
though he knew such a houseful might materially add to
the fulness of his already overflowing day. He, and after-

131

The Neyoor Nursery

wards Dr. Davidson (now the only survivor at Neyoor of
that kind trio of doctors), seemed to think nothing a trouble
if only it helped a friend. So the little house was taken
and the babies installed.

The first day, September 25, 1905, is a day to be
remembered. I had gone on before to prepare the house,
and for a day and a half waited in uncertainty as to what
had happened to the little party which was to have
followed close behind. I had left one baby ill. She
was the first child sent to us from the Canarese
country; and I thought of the friends who had sent her,
newly interested and stirred to seek these little ones, and
of what it would mean of discouragement to them if she
were taken, and my heart held on for her.

At last the carts appeared in sight. It was the windy
season, and six carts had been overturned on the road, so
they had travelled slowly. Then a wheel came off one of
their carts and an accident was narrowly averted. This
had caused the delay. The baby about whom I had feared
had recovered in time to be sent on. She was soon quite
well, and has continued well from that day to this.

How familiar the road between Dohnavur and Neyoor
became to us, as the months passed and frequent journeys
were made with little new babies ! Sometimes those
journeys were very wearisome. There was great heat, or a
dust-laden wind filled the bandy to suffocation and blew
out the spirit-lamp when we stopped to prepare the babies'
food. How glad we used to be when, in the early evening,
the white gleam of the stretch of water outside Nagercoil
appeared in sight ! We used to stop and bathe the babies,
and feed them under some convenient trees, and then go
on to our friends with whom we were to spend the night,
trusting that the soothing effect of the bathe and food
would not pass off until after our arrival. Those friends,

132

B
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The Welcome

our comrades of the L.M.S., like the Medicals at Neyoor,
seemed made of kindness. How often their welcome has
rested us after the long day !

Next morning we tried to start early, so as to arrive at
Neyoor before the sun shone in fever-threatening strength
straight in through the open end of the cart. This plan,
however, proved too difficult, so we found it better to travel
slowly straight on from Dohnavur to Neyoor. In this way we
missed the blazing sun ; but we also missed the refreshment
of our friends at Nagercoil, and arrived more or less tired
out, after a journey which, because of slow progress and
frequent stops, was equal in time to one from London to
Marseilles. But the welcome at the nursery made up for
everything.

How vividly the photograph recalls it ! The house
opened upon the main street of the village, and there was
nearly always a watcher on the look-out for us. Some-
times it was Isaac, our good man-of-all-work, who never
failed Ponnamal through the two years he was with us.
Then we would hear a call, and Ponnamal (we used to call
her the Princess, but dignity gives place to something more
human at such moments) would come flying down the
path with a face which made words superfluous. Then
there was the scramble out of the bandy, and the handing
down of babies and exclamations about them ; and all the
nurses seemed to be kissing us at once and making their
amazed babies kiss us, and everything was for one happy
moment bewilderingly delightful.

Then there was the run round the cradles in which
smaller babies were sleeping, and an eager comparing of
notes as to the improvement of each. And if there were
no improvement, how well one remembers the smothered
sense of disappointment — smothered in public at least, lest
the nurses should be discouraged. Then came a cup of tea

133

The Neyoor Nursery

on the mat in the little front room, where four white
hammock-cradles hung, one in each corner ; while Ponnamal
sat beside me with three babies on her knee and two or
three more somewhere near her. The babies used to study
me in their wise and serious fashion, and then make careful
advances. And so we would make friends.

Ponnamal had always much to tell about the exhaust-
less kindness of the doctors and their wives and the lady
superintendent of the hospital. And the chief Tamil medical
Evangelist had been true to his name, which means Blessed-
ness. Once, in much distress of mind, we sent a little
babe to the nursery, hardly daring to hope for her. When
she arrived, the doctors were both away on tour, and the
medical Evangelist was in charge. He attended to her at
once, and by God's grace upon his work was able to relieve
the little child, who has prospered ever since.

But I must leave unrecorded many acts of helpfulness.
In those early days of doubt and difficulty, almost forgotten
by us now, we beckoned to our " partners which were in the
other ship," and their Master and ours will not forget how
they held out willing hands and helped us.

It was not always plain sailing, even at Neyoor. " You
are fighting Satan at a point upon which he is very sensitive ;
he will not leave you long in peace," wrote an experienced
friend. On Palm Sunday, 1907, our first little band of young
girls, fruit of this special work, confessed Christ in baptism,
and we stood by the shining reach of water, and tasted of a
joy so pure and thrilling that nothing of earth may be
likened to it. A fortnight later we were ordered to the
hills, and then the trouble came.

The immediate cause was overcrowding. Why did we
overcrowd ?

Friends at home to whom the facts about Temple service
were new, were stirred to earnest prayer. Out here fellovv-

134

Could we Refuse ?

missionaries helped us to save the children. God heard the
prayer and blessed the work, and children began to come.
Soon our one little room became too full. We had babies
in the bungalow and on our verandah, babies everywhere.
Then money came to build two more rooms, but they were
soon too full. At Neyoor the pressure was worse, for we
could only rent two small houses ; and though we put up
mat shelters, and the children lived as much as possible in
the open air, it was difficult to manage. But how could we
refuse the little children ? The Temple women were ready to
take them if we had refused. Their houses are never too full.
There was no other nursery to which they could be sent.
Little children who had passed the troublesome infant stage
could sometimes find a home elsewhere ; but only the Temple
houses were open at all times to babies. Could we have
written to the friend who had saved a little child : " Hand
her back to the Temple. It is the will of our Father that
this little one should perish"? Should we have done it?
We dare not do it. We prayed that help would be sent to
build new nurseries, and we went on and did our best ; but
it was difficult.

We had just reached the hills in early April, and were
forbidden to return, when news reached us of a fatal
epidemic of dysentery which had broken out in the Neyoor
nursery. Unseasonable rains had fallen and driven the
babies indoors ; this increased the overcrowding. The doctors
were away. Letters telling us about the disaster had been
lost — how, we never knew — so that the second which reached
us, taking it for granted we had the first, gave no details,
only the names of the smitten babes — nineteen of them, and
five dead. Then trouble followed trouble. " While he was
yet speaking, there came also another." Some evil men who
had sought to injure us before, caused us infinite anxiety.
And for a time that cannot be counted in days or in weeks

135

it was like living through a nightmare, when everything
happens in painful confusion and the sense of oppression is
complete.

Out of the maelstrom came a letter from Ponnamal.
" We are being comforted," she wrote. " You will be longing
to come to us, but oh, do not come ! If you were here all
your strength would be given to fighting this battle with
death, and you would have no strength left for prayer.
God wanted to have one of us free to pray ; and so He has
taken you up to the mountain, as He took Moses when the
people were fighting down in the plain." This was the true
inward meaning of it all, and I knew it. But Ponnamal is
far from strong, and I feared for her ; and to stay away with
the babies ill — it was the very hardest thing I had ever
been asked to do.

When the trouble passed there were ten in heaven.
One, a little child of two, had been saved so wonderfully
from Temple dedication that we had looked forward to
a future of special blessing for her; and another was a
very lovely babe, dear to the missionary who, after much
toil and many disappointments, had been comforted by
saving her. Each of the ten had cost someone much. But
this is an earthly point of view. They had cost Him most
who had taken them, and he is only an owner in name
who has no right to do as he will with his own.

The other side, the purely human side, pressed heavily
just then. The doctors had most kindly at once ordered
a mission room, vacated at that season, to be lent to the
nursery, and another little house was taken for the month.
How Ponnamal kept all four houses going in an orderly
fashion, how she kept her nurses together through that time
of almost panic, and how she herself, frail and delicate as
she is, kept up till all was over, we cannot understand from
any point of view but the Divine. She only broke down

136

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"The Lord sat as King at the Flood"

once. It was when her dearest child, our merry, beautiful
little Heart's Joy, who, having more strength than most, had
battled longer and almost recovered, suddenly sank. The
visible cause was that a special nutrient, which, being costly,
we stocked in small quantities, ran short, and the fresh supply
reached the nursery just too late. "If only it had come
yesterday ! " moaned Ponnamal, and we with her when we
heard of the series of contretemps which had delayed its
arrival. The torture of second causes is as the blackness of
darkness, but the Lord gave deliverance from it; for just
as she had to part with all that was left her of our little
Heart's Joy, a letter came from Dr. Davidson which was God's
own blessed comfort to a heart almost broken. She never
refers to that letter without the quick tears starting. " I
could let my little treasure go after I read that letter. It
strengthened me."

While all this was going on in Neyoor, Chellalu, then just
two years old, was very ill in Dohnavur. Mr. and Mrs.
Walker were still there, and they nursed her night and day ;
but at last a letter came, evidently meant to prepare me
for fresh sorrow. " Every little lamb belongs to the Good
Shepherd, not to us," the letter said, and told of a temperature
106° and rising. The child, all spirit and frolic, had little
reserve strength, and there was not much cause for hope.
But we were spared this parting. Chellalu is with us still.

The sky was clearing again and we were beginning to
breathe freely, when the worst that had ever touched us in
all our years of work came suddenly upon us. How small
things that affect the body appear when the point of attack
wheels round to the soul ! The death of all the babies
seemed as nothing compared with the falling away of one
soul. But God is the God of the waves and the billows,
and they are still His when they come over us ; and again
and again we have proved that the overwhelming thing

137

The Neyoor Nursery

does not overwhelm. Once more by His interposition
deliverance came. We were cast down, but not destroyed.

A time of calm succeeded this storm. Money came to build
nurseries at Dohnavur, and buy more of the special nutrients
we so much required. The Neyoor remnant picked up, and
the nurses took heart again. I went out to them as soon
as I could after our return from the hills, and found
those who were left well and strong. "They shall see His
face " had been the text in Daily Light, the evening the
news reached me of the little procession heavenwards. I
looked at the ten names written in the margin of my
book ; and, recalling the story of each, could be glad they
have seen the face of the One who loves them best. Lower
down on the page come the words, "We shall be satisfied."
We thought of our babies satisfied so soon ; and then we
knelt together and said, " Even so, Father : for so it seemeth
good in Thy sight."

Pretty pictures all in colours and bright sunshine tempt
one to linger over that visit. I can see the white hammocks
slung from the trees in the nursery compound, and happy
baby-faces looking out of them. And another shows me
one who had been like a sister to Ponnamal, lightening
her load whenever she could ; sitting with two dear babies
in her arms, and another clinging round her neck. "She
comes and helps us often in the mornings when we are
very busy," said Ponnamal about the doctor's wife, as I
noticed the babies' affection for her and her sweet, kind ways
with them. " Sometimes when I am feeling down and home-
sick, she comes in like this and plays with the babies,
and cheers us all up." The Indian woman is very home-
loving. Only devotion to the children could have kept the
nurses and Ponnamal so long in exile for their sake ; and
there were times when even Ponnamal's brave heart sank.
Then these love-touches helped.

138

Goodbye to Neyoor

When the time came for the nursery party to leave
Neyoor and return to Dohnavur, after two and a half years
in that hospitable mission, we were sorry to part. Days
like the days we had passed through test the stuff of which
souls are made, and they prove what we call friendship.
After the fire has spent itself, the fine gold shines out purified,
and there is something solemn in its light. We had grown
close to our friends in Neyoor ; but the cloud had moved, so
far as we could read the sign, and it seemed right to return.
The missionaries were away when the day came, but the
Christians surrounded Ponnamal with tokens of goodwill.
" The nursery has been like a little light in our midst," they
said ; and this word cheered her more than all other words.
And so farewelled, they arrived home, all glad and warm
with the glow that comes when hearts meet each other
and each finds the other kind.

130

CHAPTER XVII

In the Compound and Near it

LJ
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CHAPTER XVII

In the Compound and Near it

(i ~TT T~OW I know why God put you in Dohnavur when
\ He wanted this work done. He hid you from the
j ^ JL eyes of the world for the little children's sake. He
knew this work could never have been done by the road-
side, so He hid you."

The speaker was a Christian friend from Palamcottah, an
Indian lawyer who, for the first time, had come out to see us.
He had found our approaches appalling, and had wondered
at first why we lived in such an out-of-the-way place, three
or four miles from the nearest road, and twenty-four from
civilisation. When he saw the children he understood.
Later, he helped us in an attempt to save two little ones
in danger, and insisted not only upon paying his own and
our worker's expenses, but in sending us a gift for the
nurseries. With the gift came a letter full of loving,
Indian sympathy ; and again he added as before : " The Lord
hid you in that quiet place for the little children's sake."
Sometimes when the inconveniences of jungle life press upon
us, we remember our friend's words : " This work could never
have been done by the road-side, so He hid you."

We have children with us who would not have been safe
for a day had we lived near a large town or near a railway.

143

In the Compound and Near it

The stretch of open country between us and Palamcottah
(the Church Missionary Society centre of the Tinnevelly
district), to cover which, by bullock-cart, takes as long as to
travel from London to Brussels, is not considered very safe for
solitary Indian travellers, as the robber clan frequent it, and
this is an added protection for the children. Several times,
to our knowledge, unwelcome visitors have been deterred from
making a raid upon us, by the rumour of the robbers on
the road. We are also most mercifully quite out of the beat
of the ordinary exploiter of missions ; few except the really
keen care for such a journey : so that we get on with our
work uninterrupted by anything but the occasional arrival
of welcome friends and comrades. These, when they visit us
for the first time, are usually much astonished to find some-
thing almost civilised out in the wilds, and they walk round
with an air of surprise, and quite inspiring appreciation,
being kindly pleased with little, because they had looked
for less.

The compound in which the nurseries are built is a field,
bounded on three sides by fields, and on the fourth by the
bungalow compound. The Western Ghauts with their foot-
hills make it a beautiful place.

The buildings are not beautiful. With us, as elsewhere,
doubtless, even the break of a gable in the straight, barn-
like roof makes a difference in the estimate, and we have
never had a margin for luxuries. But the walls are coloured
a soft terra-cotta, the roofs are a dull red ; while the porches
(hidden by the palm trunks in the photograph) are a mass
of greenery and bloom ; and the garden at the moment of
writing is rejoicing in over a hundred lilies, brilliant yellow
and flame colour, each head with its many flowers rising
separate and radiant in the sunshine. Then we have
oleanders, crimson and pink and white, and little young
hibiscus trees, crimson and rose and cream. The arches

144

r
h

Coming-days

in the new nursery garden are covered with the lilac of
morning-glory ; and the Prayer-room in the middle of the
garden is a mass of violet passion-flower, the pretty pink
antigone, and starry jessamine. The very hedges at this
season are out in yellow flower, and a trellis round the
nursery kitchen is a delight of colour ; so though our buildings
are simple, we think the lines have fallen unto us in pleasant
places.

The first picture shows the old nursery, used now for
the kindergarten. It opens off the courtyard shown in the
second photo. This courtyard serves as an open-air room,
a bright little place which is filled with merrier children
than the sober photograph shows. Tamils old and young
move when they laugh or even smile; in fact they wriggle.
Being still, with them, meant being seriously subdued ; and
90, where time-exposures were required, we had to choose
between solemn photos, or no photos at all.

Opening off the courtyard on the opposite side to the kinder-
garten is a room used as a store-room and Bible-class room
combined. It was so very uncomfortable that last Christmas,
as a surprise for the children, we divided the room into two
halves with a curtain between. Their half is made pretty
with pictures and texts, painted in blue on pale brown
wood. The children call this part of the room the Taber-
nacle. The part beyond the curtain is the court of the
Gentiles.

The Coming-Day Feasts are a feature of Dohnavur life.
Now that there are so many feasts to celebrate, we find it
more convenient to combine ; and the photograph overleaf
shows as much as it can of one such happy feast. The children
who are being feted are distinguished from the others by
having flowers in their hair. No Indian feast is complete
without flowers. Jessamine is the favourite, but the prettiest
wreaths are made of pink oleander; and sometimes a girl
10 U5

In the Compound and Near it

will surprise us with a new and lovely combination, as of
brown flowering grasses and yellow Tecoma bells.

Opposite the kindergarten room is the first of the two
new nurseries — the lively Parrot-house. This nursery, really
the Taraha (Star, called after its English giver, whose name
means "star") is the abode of the middle-aged babies, aged
between two years and four. Most of these attend the
kindergarten, and are very proud of the fact.

The Premalia nursery (Abode of Love), given by two
friends in memory of a mother translated, lies beyond the
Taraha. Here the tiny infants live, and we call it the
Menagerie. This nursery, like the other, looks out on the
glorious mountains. If beautiful things can make babies
good, ours should be very good.

On the eastern side of the field we have lately built two
small sick-rooms, used oftener as overflow nurseries. These
little rooms have names meaning " peace " and " tranquillity " ;
and those of us who have lived in them with our babies,
sick or well, find the names appropriate. In the foreground
there is a garden, in the background the mountain ; and
to give purpose to it all, the foreground is full of life. A
new nursery now being built is a welcome gift from Australia ;
and a new field with a noble tree, in whose shade a hundred
children could play, is the gift of a friend who stayed with
us for one bright week last year.

All this is a later development, unthought of when our
artist friend was with us. We have often wished for him
since the nurseries filled. When he was with us our choice
of subject was very limited : now, wherever we look we see
pictures, which to be properly caught ask for colour photo-
graphy.

The story of these buildings is the story of the Ravens,
so old and yet so new. When first the work began, we had
only one mud-floored room for nursery, kitchen, bedroom,

146

The Registered Letter

and everything else that was needed. We hardly knew
ourselves whereunto things would grow, and feared to
run before the Lord by even a prayer for buildings. And yet
we could not go on as we were. The birds were soon
too many for the nest, and we needed more nests. No
one knew of our need ; for visitors at that time were few
at Dohnavur, and we told no one. But money began to
come. We ventured on a single room without a verandah
or even foundations — built of sun-dried bricks as inexpen-
sively as possible. But it was a palace to us. While
we were building it, more little children came. We felt we
should need more room, but had not more money ; so we
told the builders to wait for a day while we gave ourselves to
prayer about the matter. Was the work going to grow
much more ? We were fearful of making mistakes. Were
we right to incur fresh responsibility? — for buildings need
to be kept in condition, and the cheaper they are the more
care they need. No one at home was responsible for us.
No one had authorised this new work. It would not be
fair to saddle those on whom the burden might eventually
fall with responsibilities for which they were not responsible.
And yet surely the work of saving these little children had
been given to us to do? Someone was responsible. Surely,
unless we were utterly wrong and had mistaken the Shep-
herd's Voice, surely He was responsible ! He could not
mean us to search for the lambs for whom only the wolves
had been searching, and then leave them out in the open,
found but unfolded, or packed so close in the little fold
that they could not grow as little lambs should?

We rolled the burden off that day as to the ultimate
responsibility, and we asked definitely for all that was
needed to build another room.

Three days later a registered letter came from a bank in
Madras. It contained an anonymous gift of one hundred

147

In the Compound and Near it

rupees, and was marked, "For a new nursery." The date
showed that it had been posted in Madras on the day of
our waiting upon God for guidance as to His wishes. A
few days later, the same amount, with the same direction as
to its use, was sent to us from the same bank. The giver,
as we knew long afterwards, was a fellow-missionary in
Tinnevelly, whose order to send these sums to us was given
before even we ourselves had fully understood the meaning
of the leading. The second room was built on to the first,
and the children called it the Room of Joy.

There are no secrets in India. The Hindu masons were
amazed at what they at once recognised as the hand of the
Lord upon the work, and they spread the story everywhere.
Later, when they built the nursery where poor little Mala
stood and mourned, they understood why they had to stop
before the verandah was built. Only enough was in hand
to build the bare room ; but to their eyes, as to ours, a
verandah was much needed, and they were content to wait
till what was required for one came. In this land of
blazing sunshine and drenching monsoon a house without
a verandah is hardly habitable, and a small square room
without one has a Manx-cat appearance.

The story of the rooms has been repeated in the story of
the work ever since. " Do not thank us. It is only a
belated tenth," wrote a fellow-missionary not long ago, as
she sent a gift for the nurseries. Belated tenths have
reached us sometimes when they have been like visible
ravens flying straight from the blue above. All the long
journeys in search of the children, all the expenses con-
nected with their salvation, all that has been required to
provide nurses and food (including the special nourishment
without which the more delicate could not live at all), all
that is now being needed for their education — all has come and
is coming as the ravens came to Elijah. The work has been

ui £

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i_l C

° I
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U! -£
£'5-

" These are Thy wonders, Lord "

a revelation of how many hearts are sensitive and obedient
to the touch of the Spirit ; for sometimes help has reached
us in such a way and in such form that we could not but
stand and worship, awestruck by the token of the nearness
of our God. There is many a spot marked in garden or in
field or in the busy nursery or our own quiet room, where,
with the open letter in our hand — the letter of relief from
a pressure unknown even to the nearest fellow-worker — we
have knelt in spirit with Jacob and said: "Surely the Lord
is in this place ! " and almost added, so dense are we in
unilluminated moments, "and I knew it not."

Framed between red roofs and foliage, there are far blue
glimpses of mountains shown in this lakeside photograph.
We do not see the water from the compound. It lies on
the other side of the boundary fields and hedges; but we
see the mountains with perfect distinctness of outline,
scarped with bare crags, which in the early morning are
sometimes pink, and in the evening, purple. But the time
to see the mountains in their glory is when the south-west
monsoon is flinging its masses of cloud across to us. Then
the mountains, waking from the lazy sleep of the long, hot
months, catch the clouds on their pointed fangs, toss them
back and harry them, wrap themselves up in robes of them,
and go to sleep again.

The road that skirts the Red Lake leads through two
ancient Hindu towns, from both of which we have children
saved, in each case as by a miracle. In the first of these old
towns there is a Temple surrounded by a mighty wall.

There are two large gates and one small side door in
the wall ; and, passing in through the small side door, one
sees another wall almost as strong as the first, and realises
something of the power that built it. The Temple is in the
centre of the large enclosure. It is a single tower opening
off the inner court. In the outer court a pillared hall is

149

In the Compound and Near it

used as stable for the Temple elephant, and two camels
lounge in the roughly kept garden in front. This Temple,
with its double walls, its massive, splendidly-carved doors
and expensive animal life, is somewhat of a surprise to the
visitor, who hardly expects to see so much in a little old
country town on the borders of the wilds. But Hinduism
has not lost hold of this old remote India yet. There are
some who think that the country town is the place to see
it in strength.

It was early in August, three years ago, that we heard of
a baby girl in that town, devoted from birth to the god.
We set wheels in motion, and waited. A month passed and
nothing was done. We could not go ourselves and attempt
to persuade the mother to change the vow she had made,
as any movement on our part would only have riveted
the links that fettered the child to the god. We had to be
quiet and wait. At last, one evening in September, a Hindu
arrived in the town with whom our friends who were on
the watch had intimate connection. He, too, knew about the
child ; and he knew a way unknown to our friends by which
the mother might be influenced, and he consented to try.
His arrival just at that juncture appeared to us, who were
waiting in daily expectation of an answer of deliverance, as
the evident beginning of that answer; thus our faith was
quickened and we waited in keen hope. Two days later,
after dark, there was a rush from the nursery to the
bungalow. " The baby has come ! " Another moment, and
we were in the nursery. A woman — one of our friends —
was standing with what looked like a parcel wrapped in a
cloth hidden under her arm. Even then, though all was
safe, she was trembling ; and outside, two men, her relations,
stood on guard. She opened the white cloth, and inside
was the baby.

The men assured us that all was right. The mother had

150

Ul
X

O
O
Q

Her Choice

been convinced of the wrongness of dedicating the little babe,
and would give us no trouble. But a day or two later, she
came and demanded it back. She could not stand the derision
of her friends, who told her she had sinned far more in giving
her child to those who would break its caste than she ever
could have done had she given it to the Temple. We pacified
her with difficulty, and were thankful when the little thing
was safe in the Neyoor nursery. For in those days, before
we learned how best to protect our children, we were
often glad to have some place even more out of reach than
Dohnavur.

The second of these old towns is famous for its rock, and
its Temple built into the rock. Looking down from above
one can see inside the courtyard as into an open well. Con-
nected with this Temple, some years ago, there was a beautiful
young Temple woman, who had been given as a child — as
all Temple women must be — to the service of the gods.
She had no choice as regarded herself — probably the idea
of choice never entered her mind — but for her babe she
determined to choose ; and yet she knew of no way of
deliverance.

But there was a way of deliverance, and if it had only
been for this one child's sake, and for the sake of the relief
it must have been to that fear-haunted mother, we are glad
with a gladness too deep for words that the nursery was here.
For the mother heard of it. There were lions in the path.
She quietly avoided them, and through others who were
willing to help she sent her child to us. She herself would
not come. She waited a mile or so from the bungalow till
the matter was concluded, then returned to her home alone.

A week later she appeared suddenly at the bungalow. It
was only to make sure the little one was safe and well, and
in order to sign a paper saying she was wholly given to us.
This done she disappeared again, refusing speech with any-

151

In the Compound and Near it

one, and for months we heard nothing of her. Then cholera
swept our countryside, and we heard she had taken it and
died. We leave her to God her Creator, who alone knows
all the story of her life : we only know enough to make us
very silent. And through the quiet we hear as it were a
voice that chants a fragment from an old hymn : " We
believe that THOU shalt come to be our Judge."

152

CHAPTER XVIII

From the Temple of the Rock

CHAPTER XVIII

From the Temple of the Rock

""TITNOTHER little girl who came from that same Temple
l\ of the Rock has a story very different from the other,
J[ \^ and far more typical.

It was on a blazing day in June, when the very air, tired
of being hot, leaned heavily upon us, and we felt unequal
to contest, that a cough outside my open door announced a
visitor. " Come in ! " Another cough, and I looked out and
saw a shuffling form disappear round the corner of the house.
I called again, and the figure turned. It was a man who
had helped us before, but about whose bond-fides we had
doubts ; so we asked without much hopefulness what he had
to tell us. He said he had reason to believe a certain Temple
woman known to him had a child she meant to dedicate
to the god of a Temple a day's journey distant. Then he
paused. " Do you know where she is now ? " " She is on
her way to the Temple." " It would be well if she came here
instead." " If that is the Animal's desire it may be possible
to bring her." "Has she gone far? Could you overtake
her ? " " She is waiting outside your gate."

At such a moment it is wise to show no surprise and no
anxiety. All the burning eagerness must be covered up with
coolness. But in the hour that intervened before the woman

155

From the Temple of the Rock

" at the gate " could be persuaded to come further, we quieted
ourselves in the Lord our God and held on for the little child.

At last the shuffling step and the sound of voices told us
they had come — two women, the man, and a child. The child
was a baby of something under two, a sad-looking little thing,
with great, dark, pathetic eyes looking out from under limp
brown curls. She was very pale and fragile ; and when the
woman who carried her set her down upon the floor and
propped her against the wall, she leaned against it listlessly,
with her little chin in her tiny hand, in a sorrowful, grown-up
fashion. I longed to take her and nestle her comfortably ; but,
of course, took no notice of her. Any sign of pity or sympathy
would have been misunderstood by the women. All through
the interminable talk upon which her fate depended, that
child sat wearily patient, making no demands upon anyone ;
only the little head drooped, and the mouth grew pitiful in
its complete despondency.

The ways of the East are devious. The fact that the child
had been brought to us did not indicate a decision to give
her to us instead of to the Temple. The woman and the man
who had persuaded them to come had much to say to one
another, and there was much we had to explain. A child
given to Temple service is not in all cases entirely cut off
from her people. If the Temple woman's hold on her is
sure, her relations are sometimes allowed to visit her ; so
far as friendly intercourse goes she is not lost to them.
But with us things are different. For the child's own sake
we have to refuse all intercourse whatever. Once given to
us, she is lost to them as if they had never had her. We
adopt the little one altogether or not at all,

It is a delicate thing to explain all this so clearly that
there can be no misunderstanding about it, without so
infuriating the relations that they will have nothing more
to do with us. Naturally their view-point is entirely different

156

Till the Battle is Won

from ours, and they cannot appreciate our reasons. At such
a time we lean upon the Invisible, and count upon that
supernatural help which alone is sufficient for us ; we count
also upon the prayers of those who know what it is to
pray through all opposing forces, till the battle is won by
faith which is the victory.

It was strange to watch the women as the talk went on.
The woman within them had died, there was nothing of it
left to which we could appeal ; everything about them was
perverted, unnatural. I looked at the insensitive faces and
then at the sensitive face of the child, and entered deeper
than ever into the mercifulness of God's denunciations of sin.

Once towards the close of what had been a time of some
tension, the leader of the two women suddenly sprang up,
snatched at the tired baby, and flung out of the room with
her. She had been gradually hardening ; and I had felt rather
than seen the shutting down of the prison-house gates upon
that little soul, and had, as a last resource, appealed to the
sense, not wholly atrophied, the sense that recognises the
supernatural. God is, I told them briefly ; God takes cogni-
sance of what we are and do : God will repay : some time,
somewhere, God will punish sin. The arrow struck through
to the mark. Startled, indignant, overwhelmed by the sweep
of an awful conviction, with a passionate cry she rushed
away ; and we lived through one breathless moment, but
the next saw the child dropped into our arms, safe at last.

Facts about any matter of importance are usually other
than at first stated ; but we have reason to believe that in
this instance our shuffling friend spoke the truth. The women
were really on their way to the Temple when he waylaid
them. The wonder was that they allowed themselves to be
persuaded by him to come to us. But if nothing happened
except what we might naturally expect would happen in
this work, we might as well give it up at once. If we did

157

From the Temple of the Rock

not expect our Jericho walls to fall down flat, it would be
foolish indeed to continue marching round them.

It was a relief when the women left the compound, after
signing a paper committing the child to us. There is defile-
ment in the mere thought of evil, but such close contact with
it is a thing by itself. The sense of contamination lasted for
days ; and yet would that we could go through it every day
if the result might be the same ! For the child woke up to
a new life, and became what a child should be. At first it
was very pitiful. She would sit hour after hour as she had
sat through that first hour, with her chin in hand, her eyes
cast down, and the little mouth pathetic. We found that,
in accordance with a custom prevailing in the coterie of
Temple women belonging to the Temple of the Rock, she had
been lent by her mother to another woman when she was
an infant, the other lending her baby in exchange. This
exchange had worked sadly ; for the little one had asked for
something which had not been given her, and her two years
had left her starved of love and experienced in loneliness.
But when she came to us everything changed ; for love and
happiness took her hands and led her back to baby ways,
and taught her how to laugh and play : and now there is
nothing left to remind us of those two first years but a
certain droop of the little mouth when she feels for the
moment desolate, or wants some extra petting.

158

CHAPTER XIX

Yos6pu

THE WATER CARRIERS.

CHAPTER XIX

Yos6pu

N'O description of the compound would be complete
without mention of Yosepu, friend of the babies.
This photograph shows the Indian equivalent of
pumps and water-pipes. We have neither; so all the water
required for a family of about a hundred has to be drawn
from the well and carried to the kitchens and nurseries. The
elder girls, who would otherwise help with the work, according
to South Indian custom, are already fully employed with the
babies. So at present the men do it all. They also buy
the grain and other food-stuffs, look after the cows and
vegetable garden — a necessity for those who dwell far from
markets — and in all other possible masculine ways are of
service to the family.

Chief of these men is Yose'pu, whose seamed and wrinkled
and most expressive face I wish we had photographed, instead
of this not very interesting string of solemnities.

Yose'pu is not like a man, he is more like a dear dog.
He has the ways of our dog-friends, their patience and
fidelity, their gratefulness for pats.

He came to us in a wrecked condition, thin and weak
and rather queer. He had been beaten by his Hindu
brother for becoming a Christian, and it had been too
11 1G1

Yos^pu

much for him. The first time we saw him, a few minutes
after his arrival, he was standing leaning against a post
with folded hands and upturned eyes and a general expres-
sion of resignation which went to our hearts. We found
afterwards he was not feeling resigned so much as hungry,
and he was better after food.

For a week he slept, ate, and meditated. Sometimes he
would hover round us, if such a verb is admissible for his
seriousness of gait. He would wait till we noticed him,
then sigh and extend his hand. He wanted us to feel his
pulse — both pulses. This ceremony always refreshed him,
and he would return to his corner of the verandah and
meditate till his next meal came.

Sometimes, however, more attention was required. He
would linger after his pulses were felt, and we knew he
was not satisfied. One day a happy thought struck us.
The Tamil loves scent. The very babies sniff our hands if
we happen to be using scented soap, and tell each other
rapturously what they think about that "chope." Scent is
the one thing they cannot resist. A tin of sweets on our
table may be untouched for days, few babies being wicked
enough to venture upon it in our absence ; but a bottle of
scent is irresistible, and scented "chope" on our washing-
stands has a way of growing thin. The baby will emerge
from our bathrooms rubbing suspiciously clean hands, and
in her innocence will invite us to smell them. Then we
know why our " chope " disappears. So now that Yosepu
needed something to lift him over the trials of life, we
remembered the gift of a good Scottish friend, and tried
the effect of eau-de-Cologne. It worked most wonderfully.
Yose"pu held out his two hands joined close lest a single
drop should spill, and then he stood and sniffed. It would
have made a perfect advertisement — the big brown man
with his hands folded over his nose, and an expression of

162

Blessed be Drudgery

absolute bliss upon every visible feature. Now, when Yosepu
is down-hearted, we always try eau-de-Cologne.

His first move towards being of use was when some of
our children had small-pox and were put up in a half -finished
room which was being built. " It has walls and it has a roof,
therefore it is suitable," was Yosepu's opinion ; and he offered
to nurse the children. One evening we heard a terrible noise ;
it was like three cracked violins gone mad, all playing dif-
ferent tunes at the same time. It was only Yosepu singing
hymns to the children. " For spiritual instruction is a thing
to be desired, and there is nothing so edifying as music."

After this he announced his intention of becoming a
water-carrier. "Water is a pure thing and a necessity.
The young children demand much water if their bodies are
to be " — here followed Scriptural quotations meant in deepest
reverence. " I will be responsible for the baths of all the
babes." And from that time Yosepu has been responsible.
Solemnly from dawn to dusk, with breathing spaces for
meals and meditation, he stalks across from nurseries to
well and from well to nurseries. He is a man of few
smiles ; but he is the cause of many, and we all feel
grateful to Yosepu for his goodness to us. Often on
melancholy days he comes and comforts us.

It was so one anxious day before we went to the hills,
when we were trying to plan for the safety of our family.
We can only take a limited number of converts with us, and
no babies ; the difficulty is then which to take, which to hide,
and which to leave in the nurseries. We were in the midst
of this perplexity when Yose*pu arrived. He stood in silence,
and then sighed, as his cheerful custom is. We made the
usual inquiries as to his health, physical and spiritual. Both
soul and body (his invariable order, never body and soul)
were well, he said ; his pulse did not need to be felt to-day :
no, there was something weightier upon his mind. There are

163

Yosdpu

times when it is like extracting a tooth to get a straight
answer from Yosepu, for lie resents directness in speech ;
he thinks it barbarous. At last it came. " Aiyo ! Aiyo ! "
(Alas ! Alas !) " My sun has set ; but who am I, that I should
complain or assault the decrees of Providence ? But Amma !
remember the word of truth : ' Then shall ye bring down
my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.'" And he slowly
unwound his wisp of a turban, held it in his folded hands,
and shook down his lanky, jet-black locks with a pathos
that was almost sublime.

It took time to pierce to the meaning of it : the children
were being scattered — the reason must be that we felt the
bath-water carrying too much for his powers through the hot
weeks. It was not so ! He was strong to draw and to bear.
The babies should never be deprived of their baths ! But
to-day as he went to the well he had heard what broke his
heart; and he laid his hand upon the injured organ, and
sighed with a sigh that assured us his lungs at least were
sound. " Tingalu is to go away ! The apple of my eye ! that
golden child who smiles upon me, and says, ' Oh, elder brother,
good morning ! ' You are not going to leave her with me !
Therefore spake I the word of truth concerning my grey
hairs." Then quoting the text again, he turned and walked
away.

Once the beloved Tingalu was slightly indisposed. She has
not often the privilege of being ill, and so, when the oppor-
tunity offers, she does the invalid thoroughly; it would be
a pity, Tingalu thinks, to be anything but correct. But
Yosepu was much concerned. He appeared in the early
morning with his usual cough and sigh. " Amma ! Tingalu
is ill ! " " She will soon be better, Yosepu ; she is having
medicine." " What sort of medicine, Amma ? " and Yosepu
mentioned the kind he thought suitable. "That is exactly
what she has had ; you will see her playing about to-morrow."

164

THE BELOVED TINGALU.

I will pay for it

"But no smile is on her face to-day; I fear for the babe."
(Tingalu never smiles when ill. Invalids should not smile.)
Yosepu suggested another medicine to supplement the first,
and departed.

Next morning he came again, anxious and cast down in
countenance. I had to keep him waiting ; and when I came
out, he was standing beside my verandah steps, head on one
side, eyes shut, hands folded as if in prayer. " Well, Yosepu,
what is it ? " " Amma ! the light of your eyes revives me ! "
" Well, tell me the trouble." " All yesterday I saw you not ;
it was a starless night to me ! " This is merely the preface.
" But, Yosepu, what is wrong ? " " Tingalu, that golden child
with a voice like a bird, she lies on her mat. I am concerned
about the babe " (Tingalu, turned four, is as hardy as a gipsy),
"I fear for her delicate interior. Those ignorant children"
(the convert nurses would have been pleased if they had heard
him) "know nothing at all. It may be they will feed her
with curry and rice this morning. That would be dangerous.
Amma ! Let her have bread and milk, and I will pay
/or it!"

Yosepu came a few days ago with a request for a doll.
"Who for?" "For myself." "But are you going to play
with it?" Yosepu acknowledged he was, and he wished it
to have genuine hair, a pink silk frock, and eyes that would
open and shut. We had not anything so elaborate to give
him, and he had to be contented with a black china head and
painted eyes ; but he was pleased, and took it away carefully
rolled up in his turban, which serves conveniently for head-
gear, towel, scarf, and duster. When and where he plays
with the doll no one knows, but he assures us he does ; and
we have mentally reserved the first pink silk, with eyes that
will open and shut, that a benevolent public sends to us, for
Yosepu. . . . The words were hardly written when a shadow
fell across the paper, and the unconscious subject of this

165

Yosepu

chapter remarked as I looked up : "1 Corinthians vii. 31."
" Do you want anything, Yosepu ? " " Amma ! 1 Corinthians
vii. 31." " Well, Yosepu ? " " As it is written in that chapter,
and that verse : ' The fashion of this world passeth away.'
Amma, if within the next two months a visitor comes to
Dohnavur carrying a picture-catching box, I desire that you
arrange for the catching of my picture. This, Amma, is my
desire."

The Western mind is very dense; and for a moment
I could not see the connection between the text and the
photograph. Yosepu is never impatient. He squatted down
beside me, dropped his turban round his neck, held his left
foot with his left hand, and emphasised his explanation with
his right.

" Amma, the wise know that life is uncertain. I am a
frail mortal. You, who are as mother and as father to this
unworthy worm, would feel an emptiness within you if I
were to depart." " But, Yosepu, I hope you are not going to
depart." This was exactly what Yosepu had anticipated. He
smiled, then he sighed. " Amma ! did I not say it before ?
1 Corinthians vii. 31 :' The fashion of this world passeth away.'
Therefore I said, Let me have my picture caught, so that
when I depart you may hang it on your wall and still
remember me."

Yose'pu's latest freak has been to take a holiday. " My
internal arrangements are disturbed ; composure of mind will
only be obtained by a month's respite from secularities."
Yos6pu had once announced his intention of offering him-
self to the National Missionary Society, and we thought
he now referred to becoming an ascetic for a month and
wandering round the country, begging-bowl in hand ; for he
solemnly declared as he stroked his bony frame : " The Lord
will provide." But his intention was a real holiday. He
would go and see the brother who had beaten him, mid

166

Within me pulled the Strings of Love

forgive him. We suggested the brother might beat him
again. He smiled at our want of faith, and went for his
holiday. A month was the time agreed upon, but within
three days he was back. He could not stay away, he
explained, with a shame-faced air of affection. "Within me
pulled the strings of love ; pulled, yea, pulled till I returned."
Faithful, quaint, and wholly original Yose*pu ! He calls
himself our servant, but we think of him as our friend.

167

CHAPTER XX

The Menagerie

TWO VIEWS OF LIFE.

CHAPTER XX

The Menagerie

Fate which foresaw

How frivolous a baby man would be—

THE event of the week, from a Tamil point of view,
is the midday Sunday service ; so we take care of
the nurseries during that hour, and send all grown-
up life to church. In the Premalia nursery the babies
range from a few days old to eighteen months, and
sometimes two years. There is a baby for every mood, as
one beloved of the babies says ; and the babies seem to know
it. We have a lively time there on Sundays; for by noon
the morning sleep is over, and nineteen or twenty babies are
waking up one after the other or all together. And most
of them want something, and want it at once.

These babies are of various dispositions and colour — nut-
brown, biscuit, and buff; and there are two who, taken
together, suggest chocolate-cream. Chocolate is a dear child,
very good - tempered and easy to manage. Cream is a
scamp. We see in her another Chellalu, and watch with
mingled feelings her vigorous development.

Chocolate has another name. It is Beetle. This does not
sound appreciative, but Beetle is beloved. The name was

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The Menagerie

discovered by her affectionate Piria Sittie, who came upon
her one morning lying on her back in the swinging cot,
kicking her four limbs in the air in the agitated manner of
that insect unexpectedly upset. But no beetle ever smiled
as ours does.

Cream, whose real name is Nundinie, oftener called
Dimples, because she dimples so when she laughs, is a baby
of character. She early discovered her way to the bunga-
low, and scorning assistance or superintendence found her
way over as soon as she could walk. Afternoon tea is never
a sombre meal, for the middle-aged babies attend it in relays
of four or five ; and Dimples and her special chum, Lulla,
like to arrive in good time for the full enjoyment of the
function. Dimples sits down properly in a high chair close
beside her Attai, who, according to her view of matters, was
created to help her to sugar. Lulla, so as to be even nearer
that exhaustless delight, insists upon her Attai's knee ; and
tapping her face with her very small fingers, immediately
points to the sugar bowl.

These preliminaries over, Dimples sets herself to pay for
her seat. She smiles upon her Attai first, then upon all the
company. If the Iyer is present, she notices him kindly :
there is nothing in all nature so patronising as a baby. If
in the mood, she will imitate her friends like her predecessor
Scamp No. 1 ; or folding her fat arms will regard us all with
a quizzical expression more comical than play. Her latest
invention is drill. She stands straight up in her chair, and
goes through certain actions intended to represent as much
as she knows of that interesting exercise. We are kept
anxious lest she should overbalance ; but she is a wary babe,
and always suddenly sits down when she gets to the edge
of a tumble. Sometimes, however, when these diversions
are in progress, we have wished that the family could see
how very much more entertaining she is in her own nursery.

172

Diversions

There, from the beginning of the day till the sad moment
when it ends, she seems to be engaged in entertaining some-
body. Sometimes it is one of the Accals, those good elder
sisters to whom the babies owe so much. Dimples thinks
she looks tired. Tired people must be cheered, so Dimples
devotes herself to her. Sometimes it is another baby who
is dull. Dull babies are anomalies. Dimples feels respon-
sible till the dull baby revives. Or it is just her own happy
little self who is being entertained. If ever a baby enjoyed
a game for its own sweet sake, it is Dimples.

But one thing she does not enjoy, and that is being put
to bed at night. Our babies are anointed with oil, according
to the custom of the East, before being put to sleep ; but
:he moment Dimples sees the oil-bottle in her nurse's hand,
she knows her fate is sealed and protests with all her might.
Once she contrived to seize the bottle, pull out the cork,
and spill the oil before she was discovered. She seemed to
argue that as she was invariably oiled before being put to
bed, the best way to avoid ever being put to bed would be
to get rid of the oil. Another evening she succeeded in
diverting her nurse into a long search for the cork, thereby
delaying the fatal last moment; it was finally found in her
mouth. When, in spite of all efforts to wriggle out of
reach, she is captured, anointed, and put in her hammock,
Dimples knows she must not get out ; but her wails are so
lamentable that it is difficult to restrain ourselves from
throwing discipline to the winds, and if by any chance we
do, her smiles are simply ravishing. But we hear about it
afterwards.

If Dimples is asleep when we take charge of the nursery,
we find things fairly quiet and almost flat. But she usually
wakens early, and always in a good temper. It is instruc-
tive to see the way she scrambles out of her hammock
before she is quite awake, and her sleepy stagger across the

173

The Menagerie

room is often interrupted by a tumble. Dimples does not
mind tumbles. If her curly head has been rather badly
knocked, she looks reproachfully at the floor, rubs her head,
and gets up again. By the time she reaches us she is wide
awake and most engaging.

In C. F. Holder's Life of Agassiz we are told that
the great scientist " could not bear with superficial study :
a man should give his whole life to the object he had
undertaken to investigate. He felt that desultory, isolated,
spasmodic working avails nothing, but curses with narrow-
ness and mediocrity." This is exactly the view of one of
our babies, already introduced, the little wise Lulla, who
always knows her own mind and sticks to her intentions,
unbeguiled by any blandishments.

This baby is a tiny thing, with a round, small head,
covered with soft, small curls; and this head is very full of
thoughts. Her face, which she rarely shows to a stranger,
is like a doll in its delicate daintiness ; but the mouth is
very resolute, and the eyes very grave. Her hands and feet
are sea-shell things of a pretty pinky brown, and her ways
are the ways of a sea-anemone in a pool among the
rocks.

Lulla, because of her anemone ways, is sometimes un-
kindly called " Huffs." She does not understand that there
are days when those who love lier most have little time
to give to her. Lulla naturally argues that where there
is a will there is a way, and desultory, isolated, spasmodic
affection is worth little ; so next time her friend appears,
she explains all this to her by means of a single gesture :
she draws her tentacles in.

But it is when Lulla has undertaken to investigate a
tin of sweets that she most suggests Agassiz. The tin has
a lid which fits tightly, and Lulla's fingers are very small
and not very strong. The tin, moreover, is on the window-

174

Agassiz

sill just out of reach, though she stands on tip-toe and
stretches a little eager hand as far as it will go. Then
it is you see persistence. Lulla finds another baby, leads
her to the window and points up to the tin. The other
baby tries. They both try together ; if this fails, Lulla finds
a taller one, and at last successful, sits down with the tin
held tightly in both hands, and turns it over and shakes
it. This process seems to inspire fresh hope and energy ;
for she sets to work round the lid, which is one of the
fitting-in sort, and carefully presses and pulls. Naturally
this does nothing, and she shakes the tin again. The joyful
sound of rattling sweets stimulates to fresh attempts upon
the lid. She tugs and pulls, and thumps the refractory
thing on the floor. By this time the other babies, attracted
by the hopeful rattle, have gathered round and are watch-
ing operations ; some offer to help, but all such offers are
declined. This oyster is Lulla's. She has undertaken to
force it. Agassiz and his fishes are on her side. She will
not give it up. But she is not getting on; and she sits
still for a moment, knitting her brow, and frowning a little
puzzled frown at the refractory tin.

Suddenly her forehead smooths, the anxious brown eyes
smile, Lulla has thought a new good thought. The babies
struggle up and offer to help Lulla up, but she shakes
her head. She seems to feel if she herself unaided, of her
own free will, hands her problem over to her Ammal or
her Sittie, only so she may achieve her purpose without
loss of self-respect.

Lulla's beloved nurse is a motherly woman, older than
most of our workers. Her name is Annamai. When the
nurses return from church, each makes straight for her
baby; and the babies always respond with a cordial and
pretty affection. But Lulla welcoming Annamai is some-
thing more than pretty. The big white-robed figure no

175

The Menagerie

sooner appears in the garden than the tiny Lulla is all
a-quiver with excitement. But it is a quiet excitement ; and
if you take any notice, the tentacles suddenly draw in,
and the little face is as wax. If no one seems to notice,
then Lulla lets herself go. She all but dances in her eager-
ness, while Annamai is slowly sailing up the walk ; and
when she reaches the verandah, Lulla can wait no longer ;
one spring and she is in her arms, nestling, cuddling,
burying her curls in her neck ; then looking up confidentially,
little Lulla begins to talk ; everything we have done and
said is being whispered into Annamai's ear. It does not
matter that Lulla cannot yet speak any language known
to men ; she can make Annamai understand, and that is
all she cares. Once we remember watching her, as she took
the remnant of a sweet we had given her, out of her
mouth and poked it into Annamai's. Could love do more?

Dimples and Lulla are quite inseparable. Lulla is to
Dimples what Tara is to Evu. She immensely admires her
vigorous little junior, and tries to copy her whenever
possible. One delicious game seems to have been suggested
by the arches in the garden. Dimples and Lulla stand on
all fours close together. Then they lean over till their
heads touch the ground, and look through the arch. If
you are on the babies' level (that is on the floor), you will
enjoy this game.

Another Sunday morning entertainment is kissing.
Dimples advances upon Lulla. Lulla falls upon Dimples.
Then Dimples hugs Lulla, nearly chokes her, almost certainly
overturns her. The two roll over and over like kittens.
Dimples seizes Lulla by her curls and vehemently kisses face>
neck, and anything else she can get at ; and then backs off,
propelling herself on two feet and one hand, in which position
she looks like a puppy on three paws. Lulla smooths her
ruffled curls and person generally, regards Dimples with

176

" Daren't laugh and wouldn't cry "

gravity, and, if in an affectionate humour herself, leads the
attack upon Dimples, and the programme is repeated.

But the joy of the hour is to spin in the hammocks. These
contrivances being hung from the roof swing freely, and the
special excitement is to hold on with both hands, and run
round so that the hammock twists into a knot and spins when
released, with the baby inside it, hi a giddy waltz till the coil
untwists itself. This looks dangerous, and when the game
was first invented we rather demurred. But we are wiser
now, and we let them spin. Lulla especially enjoys this
madness. It is startling to see the tiny thing whirl like a
reckless young teetotum. But if you weakly interfere, Lulla
thinks you want to learn the art, and goes at it with even
madder zest, till her very curls are dizzy.

Dimples and Lulla in disgrace are a piteous spectacle.
Dimples opens her mouth till it is almost square, and the most
plaintive wail proceeds from it for about a minute and a half.
Then she stops, looks sadly on the world, surprised and hurt at
its unkindness to her, and then suddenly she discovers some-
thing interesting to do ; and hastily rubbing her knuckles into
her eyes to clear them as quickly as maybe of tears, she
scrambles on to her feet, and forgets her injuries. Once she
had been very naughty, and had to be smacked. It is never
easy to smack Dimples, and fortunately she seldom requires
it ; but hard things have to be done, so that morning the fat
little hands, to their surprise, knew the feel of chastening pats.
"She daren't laugh, and she wouldn't cry"; this description,
her Piria Sittie's, is the best I can offer of that baby's
attitude. The thing could not possibly be a joke, but if
meant otherwise, it was an indignity far past tears.

Lulla is quite different. She drops on the floor, if ad-
monished, as if her limbs had suddenly become paralysed, and
takes absolutely no notice of the offending disciplinarian.
She simply ignores her, and gazes mutely beyond her. The
13 177

The Menagerie

offence is not one for explanation, and if invited to repent, her
aloofness of demeanour is perfectly withering. But take her up
in your arms, and she buries her curls in your neck, and coos
her apologies (or is it forgiveness ?) in your ear, and loves you
all the better for the momentary breach.

Our babies are often parables. Lulla stands for the Single
Eye. How often we have watched her and learned the lesson
from her 1 She sees someone to whom she wants to go at what
must seem to her an immense distance. And the distance is
filled with obstacles, some of them quite enormous. But Lulla
never stops to consider possibilities. Difficulties are simply
things to be climbed over. She looks at the goal and makes
straight for it. Her only care is to reach it. Sometimes at
afternoon tea, when she is sitting on someone's lap, facing an
empty, uninteresting plate, she sees another plate three chairs
distant, and upon that plate there is a biscuit or some other
sweet attraction. Upon such occasions Lulla all but plunges
into space between the chairs, in her singleness of purpose.
Having reached the lap nearest that plate, she turns and
smiles at her late entertainer just to make sure she is not
offended. But even if she knew she would be, Lulla would not
hesitate. Curly head foremost, eyes on the goal : that is Lulla.

We have a custom at Dohnavur which perplexes the sober-
minded. We call most of our possessions by names other than
their own. These names are entirely private. We have to
keep to this rule of privacy, otherwise we get shocks. " O
Lord, look upon our beloved Puppy, and make her tooth
come through ; and bless Alice (in Wonderland), whose inside
has gone wrong," was the petition offered in all seriousness,
which finally moved us to prudence. We do not feel
responsible for these names, for they come of themselves, and
we see them when they come. That is all we have to do
with them. Besides the Beetle and the Sea-anemone we have
a dear Cockatoo, who screws her nose and her whole face

178

Mixed Pickles

up into a delightful pucker when she either laughs or cries,
and then suddenly unscrews it in the middle of either
emotion and looks entirely demure. This is the little
Vimala, who, under God, owes her life to her Piria Sittie's
splendid nursing. This baby has always got a private little
secret of joy hidden away somewhere inside. We surprise
her sometimes, sitting alone on the floor talking to herself
about it; and then she tells us bits of it — as much as she
thinks we can understand. But most of it is still hidden
away, her own private little secret. And there is an Owlet,
a Coney, a Froglet, and a Cheshire Cat, a Teddy-bear, a
Spider, a Ratlet, and a Rosebud. We are aware that this
list is rather mixed ; but to be too critical would end in
being nothing, so we are a Menagerie.

The Rosebud is like her name, small and sweet. When she
wants to kiss her friends, which is whenever she sees them,
her mouth is like the pink point of a moss-rose bud just
coming through the moss. George Macdonald, perfect inter-
preter of babies, must have had our Preethie's double in his
mind when he wrote : —

Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.
How did you come to us, you dear ?
God thought of you, and so I am here.

The Owlet is twin to that quaint little bird, so its name
flew to her and stayed. This babe has round eyes with long
curling lashes. When she is good, these round eyes beam, and
every one forgets that anything so fascinating can ever be
other than good. When she is naughty the case is exactly
reversed. This baby's proper name is Lullitha, which means
Playfulness, and illustrates a side of her character undis-
covered by the visitor who only sees the Owlet sitting on her
perch with serious, watchful, unblinking eyes, regarding the

179

The Menagerie

intruder. But most babies are complex characters, and are
not known in an hour.

The Teddy-bear is a fine child with perfect lungs, a
benevolent smile, and an appetite. Her ruling passion at
present is devotion to her food. She feels unjustly treated
because we do not see our way to feed her lavishly at her
own five meal-times and also at the meal-times of all the
other babies in the nursery.

On Sunday morning, when we are in charge, we hear her
views upon this subject expressed in a manner wholly her
own. She has just drained her own bottle, and is indignantly
explaining that it is not nearly enough, when another bottle
arrives for another baby, and this is too much for Teddy's
equanimity. We all know how hard it is to keep up under
the shock of adversity. Teddy does not attempt to keep
up ; she invariably topples over. But the way she does this
is instructive. She sits stiff and straight for one brief
moment, her milky mouth wide open, her hands outstretched
in despairing appeal ; then she clasps her head with her hands
in a tragic fashion, absurd in a very fat infant, sways back-
wards and forwards two or three times till the desperate
rock ends suddenly, as the poor Teddy-bear overbalances and
bursts with a mighty burst. But the storm is too furious to
last, and she soon subsides with a gusty sob and a short
snort.

Poor little injured Teddy-bear ! If it were not for her
splendid health we might believe her oft-repeated tale of
private starvation. " They only feed me when you are here to
see ! Other times they give me nothing at all ! " She tells us
this frequently in her own particular language, but the sturdy
limbs belie it. This babe in matters of affection and mischief
is as strenuous and original as she is about the one supreme
affair pertaining to her elastic receptacle — to quote a Tamil
friend's polite reference to the cavity within us — and many

180

Teddy

more edifying scenes might have been shown from her
eventful life. But undoubtedly the predominating note at
the present hour is her insatiable hunger, and when her name
is mentioned in the nursery there is a smile and a new tale
about her amazing appetite.

181

CHAPTER XXI

More Animals

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UJ -o

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Cu "u

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CHAPTER XXI

More Animals

IN full contrast to Teddy-bear is that floppy child, the Coney.
In Hart's Animals of the Bible, there is a picture of this
baby, only the fore-paws should be raised in piteous appeal
to be taken up. The Coney is really a pretty child with pathetic
eyes and a grateful smile ; but she was long in learning to
walk, and felt aggrieved when we remonstrated. Her feet, she
considered, were created to be ornamental rather than useful,
and no amount of coaxing backed up with massage could
persuade her otherwise. So she was left behind in the march ;
and when her contemporaries departed for the middle-aged
babies' nursery, she stayed behind with the infants. And the
infants had no pity. They regarded her as a sort of hassock,
large and soft and good to jump on. More than once we have
come into the nursery and found the big, meek child of three
kneeling resignedly under a window upon which an adven-
turous eighteen-months wished to climb ; and often we have
found her prostrate and patient under the dancing feet of
Dimples.

However, the Coney can walk now. This triumph was
effected with the help of an Indianised go-cart, which did what
all our persuasions had entirely failed to do. But the process
was not pleasant. The poor Coney would stand mournfully

185

More Animals

holding the handle of her instrument of torture, longing with
a yearning unspeakable to sit down and give it up for ever.
Someone would pass, and hope would rise in her heart. She
would be carried now, carried out of sight of that detested
go-cart. But no, the callous-hearted only urged her to proceed.
She would howl then with a howl that told of bitter dis-
appointment. Sometimes she would sit down flat and regard
the thing with a blighting glance, the hatred of a gentle
nature roused to unwonted vehemence. Always her wails
accompanied the rumbling of its wheels.

" The Conies are but a feeble folk, yet they make their
houses in the rocks." One day in deep depression of spirits
the Coney arrived at the kindergarten. She sat down before
the threshold, which is three inches high, and climbed care-
fully over it. She found herself in a new world, where
babies were doing wonderful things and enjoying all they
did. The Coney decided to join a class, and was offered beads
to thread. Life with beautiful beads to thread became worth
living, and it may be in the course of time that the tortoise
will overtake the hare. In any case we find much cheer
in the conclusion of the verse, for if our Coney builds in
the Rock her being rather feeble will not matter very
much.

Those who possess that friend of our youth, Alice, as
illustrated by Sir John Tenniel, may find the photograph
twice reproduced of our fat Cheshire Cat. This baby is re-
markable for two things : she smiles and she vanishes. The
time to see the vanishing conducted with more celerity than
Alice ever saw it, is when the babies' warning call is sounded
across the verandah and a visitor appears in the too near
horizon. This baby then vanishes round the nearest corner.
There is nothing left of her, not even a smile. In fact, the
chief contrast between her and the cat among the foliage is
that with our Cat the smile goes first.

186

" Beetle ! Open your Mouth ! "

Sunday morning, to return to the beginning, is full of
possible misadventure. Sometimes the babies seem to agree
among themselves that it would be well to be good. Then
their admiring Sittie and Ammal have nothing to do but
enjoy them. But sometimes it is otherwise. First one baby
pulls her sister's hair, and the other retaliates, till the two get
entangled in each other's curls. Piria Sittie flies to the rescue,
disentangles the combatants and persuades them to make
friends. Meanwhile three restless spirits in bodies to match
have crept out through the open door (it is too hot if we
shut the doors), and we find them comfortably ensconced in
forbidden places. The Beetle is a quiet child. She retires
to a corner and looks devout. Presently a sound as of scrap-
ing draws our attention to her. " Beetle ! Open your mouth ! "
Beetle opens her mouth. It is packed with whitewash off
the wall. Then a scared cry rings through the nursery, and
all the babies, imagining awful things imminent, tumble
one on top of the other in a wild rush into refuge. It
is only a large grasshopper which has startled the Cheshire
Cat, whose great eyes are always on the look-out for possible
causes of panic. The grasshopper is banished to the garden
and the Cheshire Cat smiles all over her face. Peace restored,
Dimples and the Owlet remember a dead lizard they found
in a corner of the verandah, and set off to recover it. These
two walk exactly like mechanical toys ; and as they strut
along hand in hand, or one after the other, they look like
something wound up and going, in a Christmas shop window.
Presently they return with the lizard. Its tail is loose, and
they sit down to pull it off. This is not a nice game, and
something else is suggested. Dimple's mouth grows suddenly
square ; she wants that lizard's tail.

Then a dear little child called Muff (because she ought to
be called Huff if the name had not been already appro-
priated), who has been solemnly munching a watch, decides

187

More Animals

it is time to demand more individual attention. She objects
to the presence of another baby on her Sittie's lap. Why
should two babies share one lap? The thing is self-
evidently wrong. One lap, one baby, should be the rule in
all properly conducted nurseries. Muff broods over this in
silence, then slides off the crowded lap and sits down dis-
consolate, alone. Tears come, big sad tears, as Muff medi-
tates ; and it takes time to explain matters and comfort,
without giving in to the one-lap-one-baby theory.

We have several helpful babies. Dimples has been dis-
covered paying required attentions to things smaller than
herself; and the Wax Doll pats the Rosebud if she thinks it
will reassure her, when (as rarely happens) that pet of the
family is left stranded on a mat. But Puck is the most in-
ventive. It was one happy Sunday morning that we came
upon her feeding the Batlet on her own account. The Ratlet
was making ungrateful remarks ; and we hurried across to
her and saw that Puck, under the impression doubtless that
any hole would do, was pouring the milk in a steady stream
down the poor infant's nose. Puck smiled up peacefully.
She was sure we would be pleased with her. But the Ratlet
continued eloquent for very many minutes.

Sometimes (but this is an old story now) our difficulties
were increased by the Spider's habit of whimpering, which
had a depressing effect upon the family. This poor baby
was a weak little bag of bones when first she came to us.
The bag was made of shrivelled skin of a dusty brown colour.
Her hair was the colour of her skin, and hung about her
head like tattered shreds of a spider's web. She sat in a
bunch and never smiled. Something about her suggested a
spider. Her Tamil name is Chrysanthemum, which by the
change of one letter becomes Spider. So we called her
Spider.

At first we were not anxious about her; for such little

188

The Spider and the Cod-fish

children pick up quickly if they are healthy to begin with,
as we believed she was. But she did not respond to the good
food and care, and only grew thinner and more miserable as
the weeks passed, till she looked like the first picture in a
series of advertisements of some marvellous patent food,
and we wondered if she would ever grow like the fat and
flourishing last baby of the series. For two months this
state of things continued ; she grew more wizened every day ;
and the uncanny spider-limbs and attitude gave her the air
of not being a human baby at all, but a terrible little speci-
men which ought not to be on view but should be hidden
safely away in some private medical place — on a shelf in a
bottle of spirits of wine.

We are asked sometimes if such tiny things can suffer
other than physically. We have reason to think they can.
As all else failed, we took a little girl from school for whom
the Spider had an affection, and let her love her all day long ;
and almost at once there was a change in the sad little face
of the Spider. She had been cared for by an old grandfather
after her mother's death, and it seemed as if she had fretted
for him and needed someone all to herself to make up for
what she was missing.

This little girl, the Cod-fish by name, was devoted to the
Spider. She nestled her and played with her — or attempted
to, I should say, for at first the Spider almost resented any
attempts to play. "She doesn't know how to smile!" said
the Cod-fish disconsolately after a week's petting and loving
had resulted only in fewer whimpers, but not as yet in smiles.
A few days later she came to us, and announced with much
emotion : " She has smiled three times ! " Next day the record
rose to seven ; after that we left off counting.

The Spider is fat and bonnie now. Her skin is a clear
and creamy brown, and her hair has lost its dustiness; but
she still likes to sit crumpled up, and a small alcove in the

189

More Animals

kitchen is her favourite haven when tired of the world.
Seen unexpectedly in there, bunched in a tight knot, her
dark, keen little eyes peering out of the light-coloured little
face, she still suggests a spider. But it is a cheerful Spider,
which makes all the difference.

190

CHAPTER XXII

The Parrot House

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The Parrot House

THE time to see the Taraha nursery at its best is
between late evening and early morning, and again
about noon. It is perfectly peaceful then. Thirty
mats are spread upon the floor. Thirty babies are strewn
upon the mats. All the thirty are asleep. A sleeping baby
is good. Thirty babies all good at once is something we
cannot promise at any other hour.

Shading your lantern, and walking carefully so as not to
tread on more scattered limbs than may be, you wander
round the nursery and meditate upon the beautiful ways
of childhood. There is something so touching in sleeping
innocence, and you are touched. Here two chubby babies
are lying locked in each other's arms. You have to look
twice before you see which limbs belong to which. There
another is hugging a doll minus its head. Next to her a
baby sleeps pillowed on another, and the other does not
mind. In the middle of the floor, far from her mat, a sturdy
three-year-old sprawls content. You pick her up gently
and lay her on her mat. With an expression of determined
resolution the baby rolls off again; and if you attempt
another remove, an ominous pucker of the forehead warns
you to desist. You wonder if the babies are quite as good
13 193

The Parrot House

as they seem. One of the dear, fat, devoted little pair you
noticed at first, stirs, disentangles herself from her neigh-
bour, and gives her a slight kick. There is a smothered,
sleepy howl, and the kick is returned. " Water 1 " wails the
first fat baby. "Water!" wails the second. You get water,
give it, pat both fat babies till they go to sleep, and then
cautiously retire. It would be a pity if all the babies were
to waken thirsty and kick each other. At the door you
turn and look back. Graceful babies, clumsy babies, babies
who lie extended like young pokers, babies curled like
kittens. All sorts of babies, good, bad, and middling, but all
blessedly asleep.

Sleep, baby, sleep I

Thy father guards his sheep,
Thy mother shakes the dreamland-tree
Down fall the little dreams for thee,

Sleep, baby, sleep I

Our Saviour loves His sheep.
He is the Lamb of God on high,
Who for our sakes came down to die.

Sleep, baby, sleep I

The pretty German lullaby rises unbidden, and is pushed
away by the quick, sad thoughts that will not listen to it.
For under all the laughter and nursery frolic and happiness,
we cannot but remember why these little ones are here.
Round about the compound in a great triangle there are
three Temple towers. They are out of sight though near
us, but we cannot forget they are there. They stand for
that which deprives these children of their birthright. Oh
for the day when those Temple towers will fall and the
reign of righteousness begin ! There was a time when it

194

Higher Critics

seemed impossible to desire that the fire should be allowed
to touch the stately and beautiful things of the world.
Now there is something that satisfies as nothing else could
in the vision of that purifying fire ; and the promise that
stands out like a light in the darkness is that which tells
that the Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they
shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend.

In the tiny babies' nursery many a crooning Indian
lullaby is sung to the babies in their swinging white
cradles ; but in the Taraha nursery we sing sweet old hymns,
in Tamil and English, and then all sensible people are
supposed to go to sleep. But one evening after the sing-
ing, two little tots settled down for a talk. Said one lying
comfortably on her back with her two hands clasped behind
her head : " Who takes care of us at night when we all
go to sleep?" Said the other in a mixture of Tamil and
English : " Jesus-tender-Shepherd takes care of us — Jesus-
loves-me-this-I-know." The first baby rolled over upon her
small sister with a crow of derision. " It is not ! It is
Accal 1 I woke one night and saw her ! " The other baby
insisted she was making a mistake. " Accal sleeps, all people
sleep ; they lie down like us and go to sleep. Only Jesus
stays awake, and never, never goes to sleep." " Never,
never?" questioned the first, and was quiet for a minute
considering the matter; then with a sceptical little laugh,
"Did you ever wake up and see Him?"

If the babies were always in a state of calm repose, the
Taraha's pet name, Parrot-house, would be inappropriate :
but for nearly ten hours of the day they are awake and
talkative. Talk, however, is a mild word by which to
describe their powers of conversation. Sometimes we wonder
if they never tire of chattering, and then we remember they
have only lately learned to talk. They have not had time
to tire.

195

The Parrot House

Once we listened, hoping that the trailing clouds of glory
so recently departed had left some trace of illumination in
this their first expression in earth's language of their feelings
and emotions. But we found them very mundane. Most of
the conversation concerned their " saman," a comprehensive
Indian word used by people with limited vocabularies to
express all manner of things to play with. Their " saman "
was various. Dolls, of course, and the remnants of dolls ;
tins and the lids thereof ; bits of everything which could
break ; corks, stones, seeds, half cocoa-nut shells ; rags of
many ages and colours ; scraped down morsels of brick ;
withered flowers and leaves ; sticks of all sorts and sizes ;
English Christmas cards, sometimes with much domestic
information on the back ; unauthorised sundries from the
kindergarten — delivered up with a smile intended to assure
you that they were only being kept for Sittie ; and puchies.
Puchies are insects. We have one baby who collects puchies.
" Look ! " she said, one morning before prayers, " Deah little
five puchies ! " and she opened her hand and five red and
black beetles crawled slowly out, to the delight of the
devout, who scrambled up from their orderly rows with
shrieks of appreciation.

But if the babies' conversation was unenlightening, their
chosen avocations are not uninteresting. They are always
busy about something, and, from their point of view, some-
thing important. There are, of course, some among the
thirty who are unimaginative and unenterprising. These sit
in the sand and play. Others have more to do. Life to
them is full of the unknown. The unknown is full of
possibilities. The great thing is to experiment. Nothing is
too insignificant to explore, and all five senses are useful
to the thoroughly competent baby.

They knew, of course, all the flowers, and the discovery
of anything fresh was always followed by a scene which

196

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"Watching a Miracle'

suggested & colony of small and active ants hauling some large
object to their nest; for the nearest grown-up person was
invariably hailed, and pulled, and pushed, and hurried along
till the "new flower" was reached. Then, if the object was
incautious enough to stoop down to examine it, the ants,
ant-wise, would envelope it, climbing, swarming all over it,
till there was nothing to be seen but ants.

They knew the habits of caterpillars, and especially they
had knowledge about the wonderful silver chrysalis which
pins itself to the pointed leaves of the oleander. They
knew what was packed up inside, and some with wide-
open eyes had watched the miracle slowly evolving as the
butterfly unpacked itself, and sunned its crumpled velvet
wings, till the crumples smoothed, and the wings dried, and
the butterfly fluttered away. They knew, too, the less
approachable ways of the wild bees, and where they hive,
and what happens if they are disturbed ; and they knew the
private feelings of calves, and which likes to be treated as a
brother and which resents such liberties. Crows they knew
intimately, and squirrels a little ; for infants fallen from their
nests have often been taken care of, much against their foolish
wills, until old enough to look after themselves. Their name-
sakes, the parrots, they knew very well ; and the dainty little
sunbirds that flash from flower to flower like little living
jewels in the sunlight; and the clever tailor-bird, which sews
its own nest, knotting its thread like a grown-up human
being ; and the wise leaf -insect that can hardly be found till
it moves ; and the great, green, frisky grasshopper that
seems to invite a chase.

We found they knew, alas, too much about the misuse of
everything growing in the field ! The tamarind fruit makes
condiment, but eaten raw it gives fever ; and the babies think
we are wrong here, and they are fond of forgetting our rules.
Many kinds of grasses are very good to eat; and here again

197

The Parrot House

we are mistaken, for we know not the flavour of grasses.
Seeds may be useful to plant ; but those who think their use
ends there, are short-sighted and ignorant people. Upon these
and other matters the babies feel we have much to learn.

One weird joy has been theirs, and they never will forget
it. For one whole blissful afternoon they followed the snake-
charmer about at a respectful distance ; and they cannot under-
stand why we are not anxious they should dance as he danced,
and pipe as he piped, round the hopeful holes they discover in
the red mud walls.

Other things they had learned to do, not wholly innocent.
They must have made friends with the masons who built their
new nursery, and persuaded them to do their work in a sym-
pathetic spirit; for they knew the weak points hidden from
our eyes, and how pleasant it is to scoop mortar out of cracks
between the bricks of the floor. They had learned how most
of their toys were made, and how a doll could be most easily
dissected, and the particular taste of its inside. They knew,
too, the lusciousness of divers sorts of sand — this last, however,
being a mixture of crime and disease, and treated as such, is
not a popular sin. Finally, to our lasting disgrace, they had
learned, after a series of thoughtful experiments, how best to
obey a command and yet elude its intention; thus on a wet
day, when they were commanded not to go out, their Sittie
found them lying full length in a long row on the edge of the
verandah, their heads protruding so as to catch the lovely
drip from the roof. And all these things they had carefully
learned in spite of a certain amount of supervision ; and, being
entirely unsuspicious, they will take you into their confidence
and let you share the forbidden fruit, if you are so inclined.

But, after all, perfection of goodness would make us more
anxious than even these enormities ; we should fear our babies
were growing too good — a fear not pressing at present. The
Parrot-house only overwhelms when the birds begin to sing.

198

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The Kindness of the Babies

Then indeed all who can, flee far away, for the babies once
started are difficult to stop. They are sure you like it as much
as they do, and are anxious to oblige you when you visit their
world. So they sing with the greatest earnestness, and as
they invariably hang on to every available part of you, and
punctuate their melodies with kisses and embraces, escape is
not always practicable.

The Taraha nursery was our first substantial building. It
is built upon foundations raised well off the ground, and has
a wide verandah. When first it was opened and the children
were invited to take possession, they did so most completely.
One quaint little person of barely three, called Kohila, whose
small, repressed face in the photograph gives no hint of
character, used to stalk up and down the verandah with an
air of proprietorship which left no doubt in any mind as to
her opinion on the subject. Another (sharing the swinging
cot with Kohila in the photo) sat on the top step and smiled
encouragingly to visitors. It was nice to be smiled at, but
there was something very condescending in the smile. Another
stood guard over the plants, which grew in pots much bigger
than herself all the way down the verandah. If any presumed
to touch them, she would dart out upon them with an indig-
nant chirrup. For days after the great event — the opening of
the Taraha — small parties waited on visitors, formed in pro-
cession before and behind, and escorted them round, explaining
all mysteries, and insisting upon due admiration. Everything
had to be interviewed, from teaspoons to pots of fern. This
concluded, the guests were politely dismissed, and departed,
let us hope, properly penetrated with a sense of the kindness
of the babies.

There have always been some who object to visitors. One
of these showed her objection, not by crying and running
away, as undignified babies do, but by sitting exactly where
she was when she first caught sight of the intruder, and

199

The Parrot House

staring straight into space with a very stony stare. A sensi-
tive visitor could hardly have had the temerity to pass her,
but normal visitors are not sensitive. Sometimes they
attempted to make friends. This was too much. One fat
/irm would be slowly raised till it covered the baby's eyes,
and in this position she would sit like a small petrifaction,
till the horror had withdrawn.

This baby, Preetha by name, has in most matters a way of
her own. One of her little peculiarities is a strong preference
for solo music as compared with concert. She listens atten-
tively to others' performances, then disappears. If followed,
she will be found alone in a corner, with her face to the wall
and her back to the world ; and if she thinks herself unob-
served, you will be regaled with a solo. This experience is
interesting to the musical. It is never twice alike. Some-
times it is a succession of sounds, like a tune that has lost its
way ; sometimes, a recognisable version of the chorus lately
learned. At other times she delivers her soul in a series of
short groans and grunts, beating time with her podgy hands.
If she perceives through the back of her head that someone is
looking or listening, she stops at once ; and no persuasions can
ever produce that special rehearsal again. Of late this baby,
being now nearly three, has awakened to a sense of life's
responsibilities, and she evidently wishes to prepare to meet
them suitably. Yesterday evening she came to me with an
exceedingly serious face, pointed in the direction of the kinder-
garten room, and then tapping herself, remarked : " Amma ! I
kindergarten." No more was said ; but we know we shall soon
see her solemnly waddling into the schoolroom, and we
wonder what will happen. Will she continue to insist upon
a corner to herself?

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The Bear Garden

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The Bear Garden

" prT^HE fruit of the lotus — a capsule — ripens below the
surface of the water. When the seeds are ripe and
M. leave the berry, a small bubble of air attached to
them brings them to the surface, and the seeds are carried
wherever the wind and waves take them until the bubble
bursts ; when the seed, being heavier than water, sinks to the
bottom, and then begins to grow to form a new plant, which
may be at some distance from the parent one. In this simple
way the lotus plant is enabled to spread." So says our botany
book; and the thought of the lotus seed in its little air-boat
floating away over the water to be sown, perhaps, far from
the parent plant, is full of suggestion, and leads us straight to
the Bear-garden.

A lotus-pool, a bear-garden — the connection is not obvious.
Alice in her wanderings never wandered into bewilderment
more profound than such a mixture of ideas. But this is
the way we get to it: We have called these little children
Lotus-buds — for such they are in their youngness and inno-
cence ; and the underlying thought runs deeper, as those who
have read the first chapter know — but the Lotus-buds must
grow into flowers and must be sown as living seeds, perhaps
far away from the happy place they knew when they were

203

The Bear Garden

buds. The little air-boat will come for them. The breath of
the Spirit that bloweth where it listeth will carry them where
it will, and we want them to be ready to be sown wherever
the pools of the world are barren of lotus flowers. And this
brings us straight to the newest of our beginnings in Dohna-
vur — the Kindergarten.

An ideal kindergarten is a place where the teachers train
the scholars, and we hope to have that in time ; at present the
case is opposite, and that is why it has its name, the name that
conflicts with the lotus-pool — the Bear-garden.

In this peaceful room Classes B, C, and D have taken their
young teachers in hand — Rukma, Preena, and Sanda. Of
these Rukma (Radiance) has the clearest ideas about dis-
cipline ; Preena (the Elf) knows best how to coax ; and
Sanda, excellent Mouse that she is, has the gift of patience.
These three (who after all are only school-girls, continuing
their own education with their Prema Sittie) are attempting
to instruct the babies on the lines of organised play ; but the
babies feel they have much to teach their teachers, and this
is how they do it : —

Prema Sittie goes into the room when the kindergarten is
in progress, and from three classes at once babies come
springing towards her with squeals of joy, and they clasp
her knees and look up with eyes full of affection and con-
fidence in their welcome. " Go back to your place ! " she says,
and tries to look severe ; with a chuckle the children obey,
and she looks round and takes notes.

Chellalu is lying full-length on the bench, with a look of
supreme content on her face, and her two feet against the wall.
Pyarie has turned her back to the picture that is being shown,
and is tying a handkerchief round her head. Ruhinie, an
India-rubber-ball sort of baby, has suddenly bounced up from
her seat, and is starting a chorus, of which she is fond, at the
top of her not very gentle voice ; and Komala, a perfect sprite,

204

Babel

is tickling the child who sits next to her. " Sittie ! " exclaims
the distracted teacher, " they won't learn anything ! " Or if
she happens to be the Mouse, she is calmly engaged with the
one good child in her class.

The next group is stringing beads on pieces of wire. " Look,
look ! " and an eager babe holds out her wire for admira-
tion, and probably spills her beads in her effort to secure
attention. If she does, there is a general scramble, beads
rolling loose on the floor being quite irresistible. One wicked
baby sits by herself and strings her beads on her curls.

A few minutes later it is mat-plaiting ; and the agile little
fingers are diligently weaving pieces of blue and yellow
material, bits over from their elder sisters' garments, beauti-
fully unconscious that they are supposed to be working the
colours alternately. Sometimes in the gayest way they
exclaim : " Sittie ! It's wrong ! it's wrong ! " Occasionally
there is a howl from a child who has been pinched by another,
or whose neighbour has helped herself to her beads. Sittie
crosses the room hurriedly. "What's the matter?" With
tears rolling down her cheeks the victim points to her op-
pressor. " May you do that ? " is the invariable English
question. It is answered by a shake of the head, the tiniest
baby understanding that particular remark. The injured
baby smiles. A reproof, or at worst a pat on the fat arm
next to hers, satisfies her sense of justice, and she is
content.

When an English lesson begins, those afflicted with delicate
nerves are happier elsewhere. One class has a toy farmyard,
another a set of tea-things, the third a doll which every
member of the class is aching to embrace. The teachers and
children alike are inclined to talk with emphasis ; and if you
stand between the three classes you hear queer answers to
queerer questions, and wonder if the babies at Babel were
anything like so bewildering.

205

The Bear Garden

But this vision of the kindergarten is hardly a fortnight
old ; for Classes B, C, and D are of recent development, and are
made up of some heedless characters, as Chellalu and Pyarie,
who could not keep up with class A, and a few more young
things from the nursery who were wilder than wild rabbits
from the wood when we began. Also it should be stated
that from the babies' point of view white people are only
playthings. " They were very good before you came 1 " is
the unflattering remark frequently addressed to us ; and
as we discreetly retire, the babies do seem to become
suddenly beautifully docile. But even so they might be
better, as an unconscious comedy over-seen this morning
proves. I was in the porch outside the door, when Rukma,
pointing to a blackboard on which were written sundry words,
told Chellalu to show her " cat," and I looked in interested to
know if Chellalu really knew anything of reading. Chellalu
brandished the pointer, then turned to Rukma with a con-
fidential smile, " Cat? Where is it, Accal? Is it at the top or
at the bottom ? " Rukma, who has a keen sense of the comic,
seemed to find it difficult to look as she felt she ought.
Chellalu caught the twinkle in her eye, and throwing herself
heartily into the spirit of the game, which was evidently
intended to be a kindergarten version of Hunt the Mouse
through the Wood, she searched the blackboard for cat. Then
to Rukma : " Accal ! dear Accal ! Tell me, and I'll tell you I "

There is nothing that helps us so much to be good as to be
believed in and thought better than we are ; and the converse
is true, so we do not want to be always suspecting Chellalu of
sin ; but this last was entirely too artless, and this was
apparently Rukma's view, for she sent Chellalu back to her
seat and called up another baby, who, fairly radiating virtue,
immediately found the cat.

The next room — which Class A (the first to be formed)
has to itself — is a haven of peace after the Bear-garden. It

206

Compassions of the Wise

is a pleasant room like the other, pretty with pictures and
with flowers. And the little bright faces make it a happy
place, for this class, though serious-minded, is exceedingly
cheerful. There is the demure little Tingalu, the good child
of the kindergarten, its hope and stay in troublous hours,
and the quaint little trio, Jeya, Jullanie, and Sella — this
last is called Cock-robin by the family, for she has eyes and
manners which remind us of the bird, and she hardly ever
walks, she hops. Mala and Bala are in the class, and a
lively scamp called Puvai.

The kindergarten is worked in English, helped out with
Tamil when occasion requires. This plan, adopted for reasons
pertaining to the future of the children, is resulting in some-
thing so comical that we shall be sorry when the first six
months are over and the babies grow correct. At present they
talk with delightful abandon impossible to reproduce, but very
entertaining to those who know both languages. They tack
Tamil terminations to English verbs, and English nouns make
subjects for Tamil predicates. They turn their sentences
upside down and inside out, and any way in fact which occurs
to them at the moment, only insisting upon one thing : you
must be made to understand. They apply everything they
learn as immediately as possible, and woe to the unwary
flounderer in the realm of natural science who offers an
explanation of any phenomena of nature other than that
taught in the kindergarten. The learned baby regards you
with a tender sort of pity. Poor thing, you are very ignorant;
but you will know better in time — if only you will come to
the kindergarten, the source of the fountain of knowledge.

The ease and the quickness with which a new word is
appropriated constantly surprises us. As for example : one
morning two babies wandered round the Prayer-room, and,
discovering passion-flowers within reach, eagerly begged for
them in Tamil. One of the two pushed the other aside and

207

The Bear Garden

wanted all the flowers. " Greedy ! greedy ! " I said reprovingly,
in English. " Greedy mine!" was the immediate rejoinder, and
the little hand was held out with more certainty than ever now
that the name of the flower was known. " Greedy my flower !
Mine ! "

But some of the quaintest experiences are when the
eloquent baby, determined to express herself in English, falls
back upon scraps of kindergarten rhyme and delivers it in
all seriousness. On the evening before my birthday I was
banished from my room, and the children decorated it
exactly as they pleased. When I returned I was implored
not to look at anything, as it was riot intended to be seen
till next morning. Next morning the babies came in pro-
cession with their elders, and while I was occupied with
them out on the verandah, Chellalu and her friend Naveena,
discovering something unusual in my room, escaped from the
ranks and went off to examine the mystery. I found them
a moment later gazing in astonished joy at the glories there
revealed. "Who did it all? " gasped Chellalu, whose intention,
let us hope, was perfectly reverent. " God did it all ! "

The one kindergarten class taught entirely in Tamil is the
Scripture lesson, illustrated whenever possible by pictures ;
and being always taught about sacred things in Tamil, the
babies have no doubt about the language in use in Bible
days. But sometimes a little mind is puzzled, as an in-
structive aside revealed a day or two ago. For their teacher
had told them in English, not as a Scripture lesson, but just
as a story, about Peter and John and the lame man. The
picture was before them, and they understood and followed
keenly; but one little girl whispered to another, who happened
to be the well-informed Cock-robin : " Did Peter and John talk
English or Tamil?" "Tamil, of course!" returned Cock-robin,
without a moment's hesitation.

The Scripture lessons are usually given by Arulai, whose

208

Practical Politics

delight is Bible teaching. " So that as much as lieth in you
you will apply yourself wholly to this one thing, and draw
all your cares and studies this way," is a word that always
conies to mind when one thinks of Arulai and her Bible.
She much enjoys taking the babies, believing that the im-
pressions created upon the mind of a little child are prac-
tically indelible.

Sometimes these impressions are expressed in vigorous
fashion. Once the subject of the class was the Good
Samaritan. The babies were greatly exercised over the
scandalous behaviour of the priest and the Levite. "Punish
them ! Let them have whippings ! " they demanded. Arulai
explained further. But one baby got up from her seat and
walked solemnly to the picture. " Take care what you are
doing ! " she remarked impressively in Tamil, shaking her
finger at the two retreating backs. " Naughty ! naughty ! " —
this was in English — " take care ! "

One of the favourite pictures shows Abraham and Isaac
on the way to the mount of sacrifice. This story was told
one morning with much reverence and feeling, and the
babies were impressed. There were tears in Bala's eyes as
she gazed at the picture, but she brushed them away
hurriedly and hoped no one had noticed. Only Chellalu
appeared perfectly unconcerned. She had business of her
own on hand, and the story, it seemed, had not touched
her. The babies are searched before they come to school,
and all toys, bits of string, old tins, and sundries are
removed from their persons. But there are ways of evading
inquisitors. Chellalu knows these ways. She now produced
a long wisp of red tape from somewhere — she did not tell
us where — and proceeded to tie her feet together. This
accomplished, she curled herself up on the bench like a
caterpillar on a leaf, and to all appearances went to sleep.
Why was she not awakened aiid compelled to behave

14 209

The Bear Garden

properly? asks the reader, duly shocked. Perhaps because
on that rather special morning the teacher preferred her
asleep.

The story finished, the children were questioned, and
they answered with unwonted gravity. "What did Isaac
say to his father as they walked alone together ? " An
awed little voice had begun the required answer, when
Chellalu suddenly uncurled, sat up, and said in clear, decided
Tamil : " He said, ' Father ! do not kill me ! ' Yesh I that was
what he said."

When first the babies heard about Heaven, they all
wanted to go at once, and with difficulty were restrained
from praying to be taken there immediately. There was
one naughty child who, when she was given medicine,
invariably announced, "I will not stay in this village: I am
going to Heaven ! I am going now ! " But they soon grew
wiser. It was our excitable, merry little Jullanie who
summed up all desires with most simplicity : " Lord Jesus,
please take me there or anywhere anytime ; only wherever
I am, please stay there too ! " Some of the babies are carnal :
'When I go to that village (Heaven), I shall go for a ride
on the cherubim's wings. I will make them take me to all
sorts of places, just wherever I want to go."

The latest pronouncement, however, was for the moment
the most perplexing. " Come - anda - look - ata - well ! " said
Chellalu yesterday evening, the sentence in a single long
word. The well is being dug in the Menagerie garden and
is surrounded by a trellis, beyond which the babies may not
pass, unless taken by one of ourselves. As we drew near
to the well, Chellalu pointed to it and said : " Amma ! That
is the way to Heaven ! " This speech, which was in Tamil,
considerably surprised me, as naturally we think of Heaven
above the bright blue sky. The yawning gulf of the
unfinished well suggested something different.

210

ARULAI AND RUKMA, WITH NAVEENA.

The Way to Heaven

But Chellalu was positive. "It is the way to Heaven. I
may not go there, but you may ! Yesh ! you may go to
Heaven, Amma, but / may not I " She had nothing more
to say; and we wondered how she could possibly have
arrived at so extraordinary a conclusion, till we remembered
that it had been explained to the babies that any baby
falling in would probably be drowned and die, and so until
it was finished and made safe no baby must go near it.
Chellalu had evidently argued that as to die meant going to
Heaven, the well must be the way to Heaven ; and as only
grown-up people might go near it, they, and they alone
apparently, were allowed to go to Heaven.

These babies are nothing if not practical. Arulai had been
teaching the story of the Unmerciful Servant ; and to bring
it down to nursery life, supposed the case of a baby who
snatched at other babies' toys, and was unfair and selfish.
Such a baby, if not reformed, would grow up and be like
the Unmerciful Servant. The babies looked upon the back
of the offender as shown in the picture. " Bad man ! Nasty
man ! " they said to each other, pointing to him with
aversion. And Arulai closed the class with a short prayer
that none of the babies might ever be like the Unmerciful
Servant.

The prayer over, the babies rushed to the table where
their toys were put during the Scripture lesson. Pyarie got
there first, and, gathering all she could reach, she swept
them into her lap and was darting off with them, when a
word from Arulai recalled her. For a moment there was
a struggle. Then she ran up to Tingalu, the child she had
chiefly defrauded, poured all her treasures into her lap, and
then sprang into Arulai's arms with the eager question :
" Acca ! Acca ! Am I not a Merciful Servant ? "

211

CHAPTER XXIV

The Accals

CHAPTER XXIV

The Accals

"This sacred work demands not lukewarm, selfish, slack sonls,
but hearts more finely tempered than steel, wills purer and harder
than the diamond." — P&RB DlDON.

THE Accals, without whom this work in all its various
branches could not be undertaken, are a band of
Indian sisters (the word Accal means older sister)
who live for the service of the children. First among the
Accals is Ponnamal (Golden). With the quick affection of
the East the children find another word for Gold and call
her doubly Golden Sister.

Sometimes we are asked if we ever find an Indian fellow-
worker whom we can thoroughly trust. The ungenerous
question would make us as indignant as it would if it were
asked about our own relations, were it not that we know
it is asked in ignorance by those who have never had the
opportunity of experiencing, or have missed the happiness
of enjoying, true friendship with the people of this land.
Those who have known that happiness, know the limitless
loyalty and the tender, wonderful love that is lavished on
the one who feels so unworthy of it all. If there is distance
and want of sympathy between those who are called to be
workers together with the great Master, is not something
wrong? Simple, effortless intimacy, that closeness of touch
which is friendship indeed, is surely possible. But rather
we would put it otherwise, and say that without it service

215

The Accals

together, of the only sort we would care to know, is perfectly
impossible.

In our work all along we have had this joy to the full.
God in His goodness gave us from the first those who
responded at once to the confidence we offered them. In
India the ideal of a consecrated life is a life with no reserves —
which seeks for nothing, understands nothing, cares for
nothing but to be poured forth upon the sacrifice and service.
Pierce through the various incrustations which have over-
laid this pure ideal, give no heed to the effect of Western
influence and example, and you come upon this feeling,
however expressed or unexpressed, at the very back of all—
the instinct that recognises and responds to the call to
sacrifice, and does not understand its absence in the lives
of those who profess to follow the Crucified. Who, to whom
this ideal is indeed " The Gleam," that draws and ever draws
the soul to passionate allegiance, can fail to find in the Indian
nature at its truest and finest that kinship of spirit which
knits hearts together? "And it came to pass when he had
made an end of speaking, that the soul of Jonathan was knit
with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own
soul " : this tells it all. The spring of heart to heart that we
call affinity, the knitting no hand can ever afterward unravel —
these experiences have been granted to us all through our
work together, and we thank God for it.

Ponnamal's work lies chiefly among the convert-nurses
and the babies. She has charge of the nurseries and of the
food arrangements, so intricate and difficult to the mere lay
mind; she trains her workers to thoroughness and earnest-
ness, and by force of example seems to create an atmo-
sphere of cheerful unselfishness that is very inspiring. How
often we have sent a young convert, tempted to self-
centredness and depression, to Ponnamal, and seen her
return to her ordinary work braced and bright and

216

SELLAMUTTU AND SUSEELA.

Pure Justice

sensible. Wo are all faulty and weak at times, and every
nursery, like every life, has its occasional lapses ; but on
the whole it is not too much to say that the nurseries are
happy places, and Ponnamal's influence goes through them
all like a fresh wind. And this in spite of very poor health.
For Ponnainal, who was the leader of our itinerating band,
broke down hopelessly, and thought her use in life had
passed — till the babies came and brought her back to
activity again. And the joy of the Lord, we have often
proved, is strength for body as well as soul.

Sellamuttu, who comes next to Ponnamal, is the " Pearl "
of previous records, and she has been a pearl to us through
all our years together. She is special Accal to the house-
hold of children above the baby-age — a healthy, high-spirited
crew of most diverse dispositions ; and she is loved by one
and all with a love which is tempered with great respect,
for she is "all pure justice," as a little girl remarked
feelingly not long ago, after being rather sharply reproved
for exceeding naughtiness : " within my heart wrath burned
like a fire ; but my mouth could not open to reply, for inside
me a voice said, ' It is true, entirely true ; Accal is perfectly
just.'"

This Accal, however, is most tender in her affections, and
among the babies she has some particular specials. One of
these is the solemn-faced morsel of the photograph, to save
whom she travelled, counting by time, as far as from London
to Moscow and back ; and the baby arrived as happy and well
as when the friends at " Moscow " sent her off with prayers
and blessings and kindness. But the photograph was a
shock. " Aiyo ! " she said, quite upset to see her delight so
misrepresented, " that is not Suseela ! There is no smile,
no pleasure in her face ! " We comforted her by the
assurance that any one who understood babies and their
ways would consider the camera responsible for the

217

The Accals

expression. And at least the baby was obedient. Had
she not told her to make a salaam, and had not the little
hand gone up in serious salute? A perfectly obedient baby
is Sellamuttu's ideal, and she was satisfied.

Both these sisters came to us at some loss to themselves,
for both could have lived at home at ease if they had been
so inclined. Ponnamal lost all her little fortune by joining
us. She could, perhaps, have recovered it by going to law,
but she did not feel it right to do so, and she suffered
herself to be defrauded. "How could I teach others to be
unworldly if I myself did what to them would appear worldly-
minded ? " That was all she ever said by way of explanation.
Next to Ponnamal and Sellamuttu come the motherly-
hearted Gnanamal and Annamai. They came to us when we
were in circumstances of peculiar difficulty. The work was just
beginning, and we had not enough trustworthy helpers ; so,
wearied with disturbed nights, we were almost at the end of
our strength. " Send us help ! " we prayed, and went on
each trying to do the work of three. It was one hot, tiring
afternoon, when we longed to forget everything and rest for
half an hour, but could not, because there was so much to do,
that a bright, capable face appeared at the door of our room,
and Annamai, Lulla's beloved, came in and said: " God sent me,
and my relative " (naming a mission catechist) " brought me.
And so I have come ! "

And Gnanamal — we were in dire straits, for a dear little
babe had suffered at the hands of one who thought first of
herself and second of her charge, and the most careful tending
was needed if the baby was to survive — it was then Gnanamal
came and took charge of the delicate child, and became the
comfort and help she has ever continued to be. When there is
serious illness, and night-nursing is required, Gnanamal is
always ready to volunteer ; though to her, as to most of us in
India, night work is not what the flosh would choose. Then

218

Q
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D
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3
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CQ
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CQ

OS
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Q
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uf
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I
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H
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I
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Whose Names are in the Book of Life

in the morning, when we go to relieve her, we find her
bright as ever, as if she had slept comfortably all the time.
We think this sort of help worth gratitude.

The convert-workers, dear as dear children, but, thank God,
dependable as comrades, come next in age to the head Accals.
Arulai Tara (known to some as "Star") is what her name
suggests, something steadfast, something shining, something
burning with a pure devotion which kindles other fires. We
cannot imagine our children without their beloved Arulai.
Then there is Sundoshie (Joy), to the left next Suhinie in
the photo, a young wife for whom poison was prepared
three times, and whose escape from death at the hand of
husband and mother-in-law was one of those quiet miracles
which God is ever working in this land of cruelty in dark
places. And Suhinie (Gladness), whose story of deliverance
has been told before ; * and Esli, the gift of a fellow-
missionary, a most faithful girl ; and others younger, but
developing in character and trustworthiness. All these young
converts need much care, but the care of genuine converts is very
fruitful work ; and one interesting part of it is the fitting of
each to her niche, or of fitting the niche to her. Discernment
of spirit is needed for this, for misfits means waste energy and
great discomfort; and energy is too good a thing to waste,
and comfort too pleasant a thing to spoil. So those who are
responsible for this part of the work would be grateful
for the remembrance of any who know how much depends
upon it.

Among the recognised "fits" in our family is "the Accal
who loves the unlovable babies." This is Suhinie. We tried
her once with the Taraha children ; but the terrible activity of
these young people was altogether too much for the slowly
moving machinery of poor Suhinie's brain, and she was
perfectly overwhelmed and very miserable. For Suhinie

* Overweights of Joy, ch. xxiii. Suhinie left the nursery for a few hours'
rest at noon on February 2, 1910. She fell asleep, to awaken in heaven.

219

The Accals

hates hurry and sudden shocks of any sort, and the babies
of maturer years discovered this immediately; and Suhiiiie>
waddling forlornly after the babies, looked like a highly
respectable duck in charge of a flock of impertinent robins.

It was quite a misfit, and Suhinie's worst came to the top,
and we speedily moved her back again to the Premalia
nursery.

For there you see Suhinie in her true sphere. Give her a
poor, puny babe, who will never, if she can help it, let her Accal
have an undisturbed hour ; give her the most impossible, most
troublesome baby in the nursery, and then you will see Suhinie's
best. We discovered this when Ponnamal was in charge of
the Neyoor nursery. Ponnamal had one small infant so cross
that nobody wanted her. She would cry half the night,
a snarly, snappy cry, that would not stop unless she was
rocked, and began again as soon as the rocking was stopped.
Ponnamal gave her to Suhinie.

" Night after night till two in the morning she would sing
to that fractious child" — this was Ponnamal's story to me
when next I went to Neyoor. " She never seemed to tire ;
hymn after hymn she would sing, on and on and on. I never
saw her impatient with it; she just loved it from the first."
And a curious thing began to happen : the baby grew like
her Accal. This likeness was not caught in the photograph,
but is nevertheless so observable that visitors have often
asked if the little one were her own child.

This baby, Sununda by name, is greatly attached to Suhinie.
As she is over two years old now, she has been promoted to
the Taraha, and being an extremely wilful little person, she
sometimes gets into trouble. One day I was called to
remonstrate, and a little " morning glory " was required, and
I put her in a corner to think about it. Another sinner had
to be dealt with, and when I returned Sununda was nowhere
to be found. I searched all over the Taraha and in the

220

o
u

2:
-

Sinners

garden, and finally found her in the Pre*malia cuddled close
to Suhinie. "She has told me all about it," said Suhinie,
who was nursing another edition of difficult infancy ; and she
looked down on the curly head with eyes of brooding affec-
tion, like a tender turtle-dove upon her nestling. Then the
roguish brown eyes smiled up at me with an expression of
perfect confidence that I would understand and sympathise
with the desire to share the troubles of this strange, sad
life with so beloved an Accal.

The question of discipline is sometimes rather difficult
with so many dispositions, each requiring different dealing.
We try, of course, to fit the penalty to the crime, so that
the child's sense of justice will work on our side ; and in
this we always find there is a wonderful unconscious co-
operation on the part of the merest baby. But the older
children used to be rather a problem. Some had come to
us after their wills had become developed and their cha-
racters partly formed. Most of them were with us of their
own free will, and could have walked off any day, for
they knew where they would be welcome. Discipline under
these circumstances is not entirely easy. But three years
ago something of Revival Power swept through all our
family. It was not the Great Revival for which we wait,
but it was something most blessed in effect and abiding in
result; and ever since then the tone has been higher and
the life deeper, so that there is something to which we can
appeal confident of a quick response. But children will be
scampish; and once their earnestness of desire to be good
was put to unexpected and somewhat drastic proof.

At that time the mild Esli had charge of the sewing-
class, and the class had got into bad ways ; carelessness and
chattering prevailed, so Esli came in despair to me, and 1
talked to the erring children. They were sorry, made no
excuses, and promised to be different in future. I left them

221

The Accals

repentant and thoroughly ashamed of themselves, and went
to other duties.

Shortly afterwards Arulai found them in a state of
great depression. They told her they had promised to be
good at the sewing-class, but were afraid they would
forget. Arulai's ideas are usually most original, and she
sympathised with the children, but told them there was no
need for them ever to forget. They asked eagerly what
could be done to help them to remember. They had
prayed, but even so had doubts. Was there anything to
be done besides praying? Arulai said there was, and she
expounded certain verses from the Book of Proverbs.
" Sometimes the best way to make a mark upon the mind
is to make a mark upon the body," she suggested, and
asked the children if they would like this done. The
children hesitated. They were aware that Arulai's " marks "
were likely to be emphatic, for Arulai never does things
by halves. But their devotion to her and belief in her
overcame all fears; and being genuinely anxious to reform,
they one and all consented. So she sent a small girl off
to look for a cane ; and presently one was produced, " thin
and nice and suitable," as I was afterwards informed. The
younger children were invited to take the cane and look
at it, and consider well how it would feel. This they did
obediently, but still stuck undauntedly to their determina-
tion, in fact, were keen to go through with it. Then Arulai
explained that when the King said, " Chasten thy son while
there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying,"
he must have been thinking of a very little boy who had
not the sense to know what was good for him. They had
sense. The mark on the body would be waste punishment
if it were not received willingly and gratefully ; so if any
child cried or pulled her hand away, she would stop. Then
the children all stood up and held out their hands — what a

222

H
CC
D
O

The Mark

moment for a photograph! Arulai's "mark upon the body"
was a genuine affair, but the class received it with fortitude
and gratitude.

When I heard this history, an hour or so after its
occurrence, I rather demurred. The children had appeared
to be sincerely sorry when I spoke to them, and if so, why
proceed to extremities ? But Arulai answered with wisdom
and much assurance : " They have been talked to before
and have been sorry, but they forgot and did it again.
This time they will not forget." And neither did they. As
long as that class continued, its behaviour was exemplary;
and "the mark upon the mind," to judge by their de-
meanour, remained as fresh as it must have been on that
memorable day when the " mark " upon the body effected
its creation. The story ought to end here; but most stories
have a sequel, and this has two.

The first occurred a few weeks later. A little girl, one
of the sewing-class, had slipped into the habit of careless
disobedience, followed too often by sulks. If we happened
to come across her just when the thunder-clouds were
gathering, we could usually divert her attention and avert
the threatened trouble ; but if we did not happen to meet
her just at the right moment, she would plunge straight into
the most outrageous naughtiness with a sort of purposeful
directness that was difficult to deal with. Knowing the
child well, we often let her choose her own punishments;
and she did this so conscientiously that at last, as she herself
mournfully remarked, "they were all used up," and there
was nothing left but the most ancient — and perhaps in
some cases most efficacious, which, the circumstances being
what they were, I was naturally reluctant to try. But the
child, trained to be perfectly honest with herself, apparently
thought the thing over, and calmly made up her mind to
accept the inevitable ; for when, anxious she should not

223

The Accals

misunderstand, I began to explain matters to her, I was
met by this somewhat astonishing response : " Yes, Amma,
I know. I know you have tried everything else" (she said
this almost sympathetically, as if appreciating my dilemma),
"and so you have to do it. I do not like it at all, but
Arulai Accal says it is no use unless I take it willingly,
so Amma, please give me a good caning." (The idiom is
the same in Tamil as in English, but there is a stronger
word which she now proceeded to use with great delibera-
tion.) " Yes, Amma, a hot caning — with my full mind I
am willing. And I will not cry. Or if I do cry" (this was
added in a serious, reflecting sort of way), "let not your
soul spare for my crying ! "

The second is less abnormal. Esli, whose placid soul had
been sadly stirred at the time of the infliction of the " mark,"
was so impressed by its salutary effect that she conceived
a new respect for the methods of King Solomon. The appli-
cation of "morning glory" is a privilege reserved, as a rule,
for ourselves ; but one day, being doubtless hard pressed,
Esli produced a stick — a very feeble one — and calling up the
leader of all rebels, addressed herself to her. Chellalu, as
might have been expected, was taken by surprise ; and for
one short moment Esli was permitted to follow the ways
of the King. But only for a moment : for, suddenly ap-
prehending the gravity of the situation, and realising that
such precedent should not pass unchallenged, Chellalu, with
a quick wriggle, stood forth free, seized the stick with a
joyous shout, snapped it in two, and flourished round the
room : then stopping before her afflicted Accal, she solemnly
handed her one of the pieces, and with a bound and a
scamper like a triumphant puppy, was off to the very end
of her world with the other half of that stick.

When the Elf came to us on March 6, 1901, and we began
to know some of the secrets of the Temple, we tried to save

224

"Not Lukewarm, Selfish, Slack Souls"

several little children, but we failed. The thought of those
first children with whom we came into touch, but for whom
all our efforts were unavailing, is unforgettable. We see
them still, little children — lost. But we partly understand
why we had to wait so long ; we had not the workers then to
help us to take care of them. We had only some of the older
Accals, who could not have done it alone. These convert-
girls, who now help us so much, were in Hindu homes ; some
of them had not even heard of Christ, whose love alone makes
this work possible. For India is not England in its view of
such work. There is absolutely nothing attractive about it.
It is not "honourable work," like preaching and teaching.
No money would have drawn these workers to us. Work
which has no clear ending, but drifts on into the night if
babies are young or troublesome — such work makes demands
upon devotion and practical unselfishness which appeal to
none but those who are prepared to love with the tireless
love of the mother. "I do not \«ant people who come to
me under certain reservations. In battle you need soldiers
who fear nothing." So wrote the heroic Pere Didon; and,
though it may sound presumptuous to do so, we say the
same. We want as comrades those who come to us without
reservations. But such workers have to be prepared, and
such preparation takes time. " Tarry ye the Lord's leisure,"
is a word that unfolds as we go on.

Yet we find that the work, though so demanding, is full
of compensations. The convert in her loneliness is welcomed
into a family where little children need her and will soon
love her dearly. The uncomforted places in her heart become
healed, for the touch of a little child is very healing. If she
is willing to forget herself and live for that little child, some-
thing new springs up within her; she does not understand
it, but those who watch her know that all is well. Sometimes
long afterwards she reads her own heart's story and opens it
15 225

The Accals

to us. "I was torn with longing for my home. I dreamed
night after night about it, and I used to waken just wild to
run back. And yet I knew if I had, it would have been
destruction to my soul. And then the baby came, and you
put her into my arms, and she grew into my heart, and she
took away all that feeling, till I forgot I ever had it." This
was the story of one, a young wife, for whom the natural
joys of home can never be. But if there is selfishness or
slackness or a weak desire to drift along in easiness, taking
all and giving nothing, things are otherwise. For such the
nurseries hold nothing but noise and interruptions. We ask
to be spared from such as these. Or if they come, may
they be inspired by the constraining love of Christ and " The
Glory of the Usual."

226

CHAPTER XXV

The Little Accals

CHAPTER XXV

The Little Accals

But Thou didst reckon, when at first

Thy word our hearts and hands did crave,
What it would come to at the worst

To save.

Perpetual knockings at Thy door,
Tears sullying Thy transparent rooms.

THESE lines come with insistence as I look at the little
Accals, who follow in order after the Accals, convert
children, most of them, now growing up to helpful-
ness. If part of the story of one such young girl is told, it
may help those to whom such tales are unfamiliar to under-
stand and to care.

December 16, 1903, was spent by three of us in a rest-house
on the outskirts of a Hindu town. We were on our way to
Dohnavur from Madras, where we had seen Mr. and Mrs.
Walker off for England. The two days' journey had left us
somewhat weary ; and yet we were strong in hope that day,
for we knew there was special thought for us on board ship
and at home, and something special was being asked as a
birthday gift of joy. Arulai (Star) and Preena (the Elf), the
two who were with me, were full of expectation. The day had
often been marked by that joy of joys, a lost sheep found ;

229

The Little Accals

and as we looked out at the heathen town with its many
people so unconscious of our thoughts about them, we won-
dered where we should find the one our thoughts had singled
from among the crowd, and we went out to look for her.

Up and down the long white streets we looked for her;
on the little narrow verandahs, in the courtyards of the
houses, in their dark inner rooms when we were invited
within, out again into the sunshine — but we could not find her.
That evening I remember, though we did not say so to each
other, we felt a little disappointed. We had not met one who
even remotely cared for the things we had come to bring.

No one had responded. There was not, so far as we knew
it, even a little blade to point to, much less a sheaf to lay
at His feet. After nightfall a woman came to see us. But
she was a Christian, and beyond trying to cheer her to more
earnest service among the heathen, there was nothing to be
done for her. She left us, she told us afterwards, warmed
to hope ; and she talked to a child next morning, a little
relative of her own, whose heart the Lord opened.

For three months we heard nothing ; then unexpectedly
a letter came. "The child is much in earnest, and she has
made up her mind to join your Starry Cluster" (a name
given by the people to our band, which at that time was
itinerating in the district), " so I purpose sending her at once."
The parents, for reasons of their own, agreed to the arrange-
ment, and the little girl came to Dohnavur. It was wonderful
to watch her learning. She is not intellectually brilliant, but
the soul awakened at once, and there was that tenderness
of response which refreshes the heart of the teacher. She
seemed to come straight to our Lord Jesus and know Him
as her Saviour, child though she was; and soon the longing
to win others possessed her, and a younger child, who was
her special charge among the nursery children, was influenced
so gently and so willingly, that we do not know the time

230

PREENA AND PREEYA
(To left and right) getting ready for a Coming-Day Feast.

" Across the Will of Nature "

when, led by her little Accal, she too came to the Lover of
children.

But one day, suddenly, trouble came. The parents appeared
in the Dohnavur compound and claimed their daughter; and
we had no legal right to refuse her, for she was under age.
We shall never forget the hour they came. They had haunted
the neighbourhood, as we afterwards heard, and prowled
about outside the compound, watching for an opportunity
to carry the child off without our knowledge. But she was
always with, the other children, so that plan failed. When
first she heard they had come, she fled to the bungalow. " My
parents have come ! My father is strong ! Oh, hide me !
hide me ! " she besought us. " I cannot resist him ! I cannot ! "
and she cried and clung to us. But when we went out to
meet them, she was perfectly quiet; and no one would have
known from her manner as she stood before them, and
answered their questions, without a tremble in her voice,
how frightened she had been before.

"What is this talk about being a Christian?" the father
demanded stormily. "What can an infant know about such
matters ? Are you wiser than your fathers, that their religion
is not good enough for you ? " And scathing mockery followed,
harder to bear than abuse. " Come ! Say salaam to the
Missie Ammal, and bring your jewels " (she had taken them
off), " and let us go home together." The child stood abso-
lutely still, looking up with brave eyes; and to our astonish-
ment said, as though it were the only thing to be said : " But
I am a Christian. I cannot go home."

We had not thought of her saying this. We had, indeed,
encouraged her as we had encouraged ourselves, to rest in
our God, who is unto us a God of deliverances; but we had
not suggested any line of resistance, and were not prepared
for the calm refusal which so quietly took it for granted
that she had no power to refuse.

231

^fc

The Little Accals

The father was evidently nonplussed. He knew his little
daughter, a timid child, whose translated name, Fawn,
seems to express her exactly, and he gazed down upon her
in silence for one surprised moment, then burst out in wrath
and indignant revilings. " Snake ! nurtured in the bosom only
to turn and sting ! Vile, filthy, disgusting insect, born to
disgrace her caste ! " And they cursed her as she stood.

Then their mood changed, and they tried pleadings, much
more difficult to resist. The father reminded her of his
pilgrimage to a famous Temple at her birth : " He had
named her before the gods." Her mother touched on
tenderer memories, till we could feel the quiver of soul, and
feared for the little Fawn. Then they promised her liberty
at home. She should read her Bible, pray to the true God,
" for all gods are one." I saw Fawn shut her eyes for a
moment. What she saw in that moment she told me after-
wards : a fire lighted on the floor, a Bible tossed into it, two
schoolboy brothers (whose leanings towards Christianity had
been discovered) pushed into an inner room, the sound of
blows and cries. " And after that my brothers did not want
to be Christians any more." Poor little timid Fawn ! We
hardly wonder as we look at her that she shrank and shut
her eyes. I have seen a child of twelve held down by a
powerful arm and beaten across the bare shoulders with a
cocoa-nut shell fastened to the end of a stick ; I have seen
her wrists twisted almost to dislocation — seen it, and been
unable to help. I think of the child, now our happy Gladness,
lover of the unlovable babies ; and I for one cannot wonder
at the little Fawn's fear. But aloud she only said : " Forgive
me, I cannot go home."

The father grew impatient. "Get your jewels and let us
be gone ! " Fawn ran into the house, brought her jewels, and
handed them to her father. He counted them over — pretty
little chains and bangles, and then he eyed her curiously. A

232

Not Peace, but a Sword

child to give up her jewels like this — he found it unaccount-
able. And then he began to argue, but Fawn answered him
with clearness and simplicity, and he could not perplex her.
She knew Whom she believed.

At last they rose to go, cursing the day she was born
with a curse that sounded horrible. But their younger
daughter, whom they had brought with them, threw herself
upon the ground, tearing her hair, beating her breast, shriek-
ing and rolling and flinging the dust about like a mad thing.
" I will not go without my sister ! I will not go ! I will not
go ! " And she clung to Fawn, and wept and bewailed till
we hardly dared to hope the child would be able to with-
stand her. For a moment the parents stood and waited.
We, too, stood in tension of spirit. "They have told her to
do it," whispered Fawn, and stood firm. Then the father
stooped, snatched up the younger child, and departed, followed
by the mother

All this time two of our number had been waiting upon
God in a quiet place out of sight. One of the two went
after the parents, hoping for a chance to explain matters
to the mother. As she drew near she heard the wife say
in an undertone to her husband: "Leave them for to-day.
Wait till to-night. You have carried off the younger in
your arms against her will. What hinders you doing the
same to the elder?" And that night we prayed that the
Wall of Fire might be round us, and slept in peace.

As a dream when one awaketh, so was the memory of that
afternoon when we awoke next morning. And as a dream
so the parents passed out of sight, for they left before the
dawn. But weeks afterwards we heard what had happened
that night. Thoy had lodged in the Hindu village outside our
gate. There has never been a Christian there, and the people
have never responded in any way. It is a little shut-in place
of darkness on the borders of the light. But when the parents

233

The Little Accals

proposed a, raid upon the bungalow that night they would not
rise to it. " No, we have no feud with the bungalow. We
will not do it." The nearest white face was a day's journey
distant, and a woman alone, white or brown, does not count
for much in Hindu eyes. But the Wall of Fire was around
us, and so we were safe.

If the story could stop here, how easy life would be ! One
fight, one fling to the lions, and then the palm and crown.
But it is not so. The perils of reaction are greater for the
convert than the first great strain of facing the alternative,
" Diana or Christ." Home-sickness comes, wave upon wave,
and all but sweeps the soul away ; feelings and longings
asleep in the child awake in the girl, and draw her and woo
her, and blind her too often to all that yielding means. She
forgets the under-side of the life she has forsaken ; she
remembers only the alluring ; and all that is natural pleads
within her, and will not let her rest. " Across the will of
Nature leads on the path of God," is sternly true for the
convert in a Hindu or Moslem land.

And so we write this unfinished story in faith that some
one reading it will remember the young girl-converts as well
as the little children. Fawn has been kept steadfast, but she
still needs prayer. These last five years have held anxious
hours for those who love her, and to us, as to all who have
to do with converts. "Perpetual knockings at Thy door,
tears sullying Thy transparent rooms," are words that go
deep and touch the heart of things.

234

CHAPTER XXVI

The Glory of the Usual

AFTER HER BOTTLE.

CHAPTER XXVI

The Glory of the Usual

^ things were done in such excellent methods, and
I cannot tell how, but things in the doing of them
seemed to cast a smile" — is a beautiful sentence
form Bunyan's Holy War, which has been with us ever
since we began the Nursery work, Lately we found its
complement in a modern book of sermons, The Urilighted
Lustre, by C. H. Morrison. "No matter how stirring your
life be, it will be a failure if you have never been wakened
to the glory of the usual. There is no happiness like the
old and common happiness, sunshine and love and duty and
the laughter of children. . . . There are no duties that so
enrich as dull duties."

The ancient voice and the new voice sing to the same sweet
tune ; and we in our little measure are learning to sing it too.

As we have said, India is a land where the secular does not
appeal. When we were an Itinerating Band, we had many
offers from Christian girls and women to join us, as many
in one month as we now have in five years. Sometimes it
has seemed to us that we were set to learn and to teach a new
and difficult lesson, the sacredness of the commonplace. Day
by day we learn to rub out a little more of the clear chalked
line that someone has ruled on life's black-board ; the Secular

237

The Glory of the Usual

and the Spiritual may not be divided now. The enlightening
of a dark soul or the lighting of a kitchen fire, it matters
not which it is, if only we are obedient to the heavenly
vision, and work with a pure intention to the glory of
our God.

The nursery kitchen is a pleasant little place. We hardly
ever enter it without remembering and appreciating John
Bunyan's pretty thought, for there things in the doing of
them seem to cast a smile. Ponnamal, who, as we said,
suprintends the more delicate food-making work ,has trained
two of her helpers to carefulness ; and these two — one a
motherly older woman with a most comfortable face, the
other the convert, Joy — look up with such a welcome that
you feel it good to be there. Scrubbing away at endless
pots and pans and milk vessels is a younger convent-girl,
who, when she first came to us, disapproved of such exertion.
She liked to sit on the floor with her Bible on her lap and
a far-away look of content on her face until the dinner-bell
rang. Now she scrubs with a sense of responsibility.

All the younger converts have regular teaching, for they
have much to learn, and all, older and younger, have daily
classes and meetings ; above all, it is planned that each has
her quiet time undisturbed. But it is early understood that
to be happy each must contribute her share to the happiness
of the family ; and one of the first lessons the young convert
has to learn is to honour the "Grey Angel," Drudgery, and
not to call her bad names.

The kitchen has an outlook dear to the Tamil heart. A
trellis covered with pink antigone surrounds it, but a window
is cut in the trellis so that the kitchen may command the
bungalow. "While I stirred the milk I saw everything you
did on your verandah," remarked one of the workers lately,
in tones of appreciation. The opposite outlook is the mountain
shown in the photograph ; only instead of water we have the

238

Q
Z

5
o
z

The Story of a Raven

kitchen-garden with its tropical-looking plantains and creeping
marrows. " And the warm melon lay like a little sun on the
tawny sand," is a line for an Eastern garden when the great
marrows ripen suddenly.

The kitchen thus favoured without, is adorned within,
according to the taste of its owners, with those very interest-
ing pictures published by the makers of infant foods. " How
do you choose them ? " we asked one day. " The truest and
the prettiest," was the satisfactory answer. Our Dohnavur
text, which hangs in every nursery, looks down upon the
workers, and, as they put it, " keeps them sweet in heart " :
" Love never faileth."

When first we began to cultivate babies we were very
ignorant, and we asked advice of all who seemed competent
to give it. The advice was most perplexing. Each mother
was sure the food that had suited her baby was the best of
all foods, and regarded all others as doubtful, if not bad. One
whom we greatly respected told us Indian babies would be
sure to get on anyhow, as it was their own land. And one
seriously suggested rice-water as a suitable nourishment.
Naturally we began with the time-honoured milk and barley-
water, and some throve upon it. But we found each baby
had to be studied separately. There was no universal
(artificial) food. We could write a tractlet on foods, and if
we did we would call it "Don't," for the first sentence in it
would be, "Don't change the food if you can help it." This
tractlet would certainly close with a word of thanks to those
kind people, the milk-food manufacturers, who have helped
us to build up healthy children ; for feelings of personal
gratitude come when help of this kind is given.

The nursery kitchen is a room full of reminders of help.
"I have commanded the ravens," is a word of strength to
us. Once we were very low. A little child had died under
trying circumstances. One of the milk-sellers, instead of using

239

the vessel sent him, poured his milk into an unclean copper
vessel, and it was poisoned. He remembered that it would
not be taken unless brought in the proper vessel, so at the
last moment he corrected his mistake, but the correction was
fatal, for there was no warning. The milk was sterilized as
usual and given to the child. She was a healthy baby, and
her nurse remembers how she smiled and welcomed her bottle,
taking it in her little hands in her happy eagerness. A few
hours later she was dead.

At such times the heart seems foolishly weak, and things
which would not trouble it otherwise have power to make it
sore. We were four days' journey from the nursery at the
time, and had the added anxiety about the other babies, to
whom we feared the poisoned milk might have been given, and
we dreaded what the next post might bring. Just at that
moment it was suggested, with kindest intentions, that perhaps
we were on the wrong track, the work seemed so difficult and
wasteful.

It was mail-day. The mail as usual brought a pile of letters,
and the top envelope contained a bill for foods ordered from
England some weeks before. It came to more than I had
expected, in spite of the kindness of several firms in giving
a liberal discount; and for a moment the rice-water talk
(to give it a name which covers all that type of talk) came
back to me with hurt in it : " To what purpose is this waste ? "
But with it came another word : " Take this child away (away
from the terrible Temple) and nurse it for Me." And with the
pile of letters before me, and the bill for food in my hand, I
asked that enough might be found in those letters to pay it.
It did not occur to me at the moment that the prayer was
rather illogical. I only knew it would be comforting, and like
a little word of peace, if such an assurance might even then
come that we were not off the lines.

Letter after letter was empty. Not empty of kindness,

240

Because He hath Heard

but quite empty of cheques. The last envelope looked thin
and not at all hopeful. Cheques are usually inside reliable-
looking covers. I opened it. There was nothing but a piece
of unknown writing. But the writ big was to ask if we
happened to have a need which a sum named in the letter
would meet. This sum exactly covered the bill for the foods.
When the cheque eventually reached me it was for more than
the letter had mentioned, and covered all carriage and duty
expenses, which were unknown to me at the time the first
letter came, and to which of course I had not referred in my
reply. Thus almost visibly and audibly has the Lord, from
whose hands we received this charge to keep, confirmed His
word to us, strengthening us when we were weak, and com-
forting vis when we were sad with that innermost sense of His
tenderness which braces while it soothes.

Surely we who know Him thus should love the Lord because
He hath heard our voice and our supplication. Every adver-
tisement on the walls of the little nursery kitchen is like an
illuminated text with a story hidden away in it : —

When Thou dost favour any action,

It runs, it flies ;
All things concur to give it a perfection.

The nursery kitchen, we were amused to discover, has a
sphere of influence ah1 its own. Our discovery was on this
wise : —

One wet evening we were caught in a downpour as we were
crossing from the Taraha nursery to the bungalow, and we
took shelter in the kindergarten room, which reverts to the
Lola-aud-Leela tribe when the kindergarten babies depart.
The tribe do not often possess their Sittie and their Ammal
both together and all to themselves, now that the juniors are
so numerous, and they welcomed us with acclamations.
" Finish spreading your mats," we said to them, as they seemed
16 241

The Glory of the Usual

inclined to let our advent interrupt the order of the evening ;
and we watched them unroll their mats, which hung round the
wall in neat rolls swung by cords from the roof, and spread
them in rows along the wall. Beside each mat was what
looked like a mummy, and beside each mummy was a matchbox
and a small bundle of rags.

Presently the mummies were unswathed, and proved to be
dolls in more or less good condition. Each was carefully laid
upon a morsel of sheet, and covered with another sheet folded
over in the neatest fashion. " If we teach them to be parti-
cular when they are young, they will be tidy when they are
old," we were informed. It was pleasant to hear our own
remarks so accurately repeated.

The matchboxes were next unpacked ; each contained a bit
of match, a small pointed shell, a pebble (preferably black), and a
couple of minute cockles. " I suppose you don't know what all
these are ? " said Lola, affably. " That," pointing to the match,
"is a spoon; and this," taking the pointed shell up carefully, "is
a bottle. This is the ' rubber,' of course," and the black pebble
was indicated ; " and these " (setting the cockle-shells on a piece
of white paper on the floor) " are bowls of water, one for the
bottle and the other for the rubber." We suggested one bowl
of water would hold both bottle and rubber ; but Lola's entirely
mischievous eyes looked quite shocked and reproving. " Two
bowls are better," was the serious reply ; " it is very important
to be clean." " What does your child have ? " we inquired
respectfully. " Barley-water and milk, two-and-a-half ounces
every two hours — that's five tablespoonf uls, you know." " And
Leela's ? " " Oh, Leela's child is delicate. She has to have
Benger. Two ounces every two hours ; and it has to be a long
time digested." "Do all your children have their food every
two hours ? " Lola looked surprised, and Leela giggled : how
very ignorant we seemed to be ! " No, only the tiny ones ; our
babies are very young. After they get older they have more

242

The Usual

at a time and not so often. That child there," pointing to
another mat, " has Condensed, as we haven't enough cow's
milk for them all. It suits her very well. She has six
ounces at a time ; once before she goes to sleep, and then none
till she wakens in the morning. She's a very healthy child."
" How do you know the time ? " we asked, prepared for anything
now. " Oh, we have watches. This is mine," and a toy from a
Christmas cracker was produced ; " Leela's watch is different "
(it was indeed different — a mere figment of the imagination),
" but she can look at mine when she wants to." " Why does
your child sleep with Leela's?" (All the other infants had
separate sleeping arrangements.) Lola looked shy, and Leela
looked shyer. These little matters of affection were not
intended for public discussion.

By this time the rain had cleared, so we prepared to depart,
and the further entertainments provided for us by the cheerful
tribe that evening do not belong to this story. We escaped
finally, damp with much laughter in a humid atmosphere.
" Come every evening ! " shouted the tribe, as at last we
disappeared, and we felt much inclined to accept the
invitation.

The kitchen is a busy place in the morning, and again
in the evening, when the fresh milk is carried to it in shining
aluminium vessels to be sterilized or otherwise dealt with.
But even in the busiest hours there is almost sure to be a
baby set in an upturned stool, in which she sits holding on
to the front legs in proud consciousness of being able to sit
up. Or an older one will be clinging to the garments of the
busy workers, or perched beside them on a stool. Once we
found Tara and Evu seated on the window-sill. Ponnamal
was making foods at the table under the window, and the
little bare feet were tucked in between bowls and jugs of
milk. " But, indeed, they are quite clean," explained Pon-
namal, without waiting for remark from us, for she knew

243

The Glory of the Usual

what we were thinking of her table decorations. " We dusted
the sand off their little feet before we lifted them up." The
babies said nothing, but looked doubtfully up at us, as if not
very sure of our intentions. But Ponnamal's eyes were so
appealing, and the little buff things in blue with a trellis
of pink flowers for background made such a pretty picture,
that we had not the heart to spoil it. Then the little faces
smiled gratefully upon us, and everybody smiled. The kitchen
is a happy place of innocent surprises.

244

CHAPTER XXVII

The Secret Traffic

CHAPTER XXVII

The Secret Traffic

"Sir, to leave things out of a book because they will not be
believed, is meanness." — DR. JOHNSON.

WHEN first, upon March 7, 1901, we heard from the
lips of a little child the story of her life in a
Temple house, we were startled and distressed, and
penetrated with the conviction that such a story ought to
be impossible in a land ruled by a Christian Power. The
subject was new to us ; we knew nothing of the magnitude
of what may be called "The Secret Traffic of India" — a traffic
in little children, mere infants oftentimes, for wrong purposes ;
and we did not appreciate, as we do now, the delicacy and
difficulty of the position from a Government point of view,
or the quiet might of the forces upon the other side. And
though with added knowledge comes an added sense of
responsibility, and a fear of all careless appeal to those
whose burden is already so heavy, yet with every fresh dis-
covery the conviction deepens that something should be done —
and done, if possible, soon — to save at least this generation
of children, or some of them, from destruction.

" It is useless to move without a body of evidence at
your back," said a friend in the Civil Service to us at the

247

The Secret Traffic

close of a, long conversation. "If you can get the children,
of course they themselves will furnish the best evidence ;
but, anyhow, collect facts." And this was the beginning of
a Note-book, into which we entered whatever we could
learn about the Temple children, and in which we kept
letters relating to them.

By Temple children throughout this book we mean children
dedicated to gods, or in danger of being so dedicated. Dedi-
cation to gods implies a form of marriage which makes
ordinary marriage impossible. The child is regarded as
belonging to the gods. In Southern India, where religious
feeling runs strong, and the great Temples are the centres
of Hindu influence, this that I have called " The Traffic "
is worked upon religious lines ; and so in trying to save the
children we have to contend with the perverted religious
sense. Something of the same kind exists in other parts of
India, and the traffic under another name is common in
provinces where Temple service as we have it in the South
is unknown. Again, in areas where, owing to the action of
the native Government, Temple service, as such, is not recog-
nised, so that children in danger of wrong cannot, strictly
speaking, be called Temple children, there is yet need of
legislation which shall touch all houses where little children
are being brought up for the same purpose ; so that the
subject is immense and involved, and the thought of it
suggests a net thrown over millions of square miles of
territory, so finely woven as to be almost invisible, but
so strong in its mesh that in no place yet has it ever given
way. And the net is alive : it can feel and it can hold.

But all through this book we have kept to the South —
to the area where the evil is distinctly and recognisably
religious. Others elsewhere have told their own story ;
ours, though in touch with theirs (in that its whole motive
is to save the little children), is yet different in manner,

248

"If"

in that it is avowedly Christian. India is a land where
generalisations are deceptive. So we have kept to the South.

We ourselves became only very gradually aware of what
was happening about us. As fact after fact came to light,
we were forced to certain conclusions which we could not
doubt were correct. But at first we were almost alone in
these conclusions, because it was impossible to take others
with us in our tedious underground hunt after facts. So
the question was often asked : " But do the children really
exist ? "

I have said we were almost alone, not quite. Members
of the Indian Civil Service, who are much among the people,
knew something of the custom of child-dedication, but found
themselves unable to touch it. Hindu Reformers, of course,
knew ; and two or three veteran missionaries had come into
contact with it and had grieved over their helplessness to
do anything. One of these had written a pamphlet on the
subject t\\-ciity years before our Nursery work began. He
sent it to me with a sorrowful word written across it,
" Result ? Nil." But we do not often meet our civilian
friends, for they are busy, and so are we ; and the few
missionaries whose inspiring sympathy helped us through
those earlier years were in places far from us, and so were
all the Reformers. So perhaps it was not wonderful that,
beset by doubting letters from home and a certain
amount of not unnatural incredulity in India, we sometimes
almost wondered if we ourselves were dreaming. " Well, if
they do exist, I hope you will be able to find them ! " — varied
by, "Well, if you do find them, they will be a proof of their
own existence ! " — were two of the most encouraging remarks
of those early days.

From the beginning of this work, as stated before, we
have tried to collect facts about the traffic and the customs
connected with it. Notes were kept of conversations with

249

The Secret Traffic

Hindus and others, and these notes were compared with
what evidence we were able to gather from trustworthy
sources. These brief notes of various kinds we offer in
their simplicity. We have made no attempt to tabulate or
put into shape the information thus acquired, believing that
the notes of conversations taken down at the time, and the
quotations from letters copied as they stand, will do their
work more directly than anything more elaborate would.
Where there is a difference of detail it is because the
customs differ slightly in different places. No names are
given, for obvious reasons ; but the letters were written by
men of standing, living in widely scattered districts in
the South. The evidence contained in them was carefully
sifted, and in many cases corroborated by personal investi-
gation, before being considered evidence : so that we believe
these chapters may be accepted as fact. Dated quotations
from the Madras Mail are sufficient to prove that we are
not writing ancient history : —

January 2, 1909. — " The following resolution was put
from the chair and carried unanimously : ' The Conference
(consisting of Hindu Social Reformers) cordially supports
the movement started to better the condition of unpro-
tected children in general, and appreciates particularly the
agitation started to protect girls and young women from
being dedicated to Temples.' "

May 8, 1909. — "Once more we have an illustration from
Mysore of the fact that the Government of a Native State
are able to tread boldly on ground which the British
Government in India are unable to approach. At various
times, in these columns and elsewhere, has the cry raised
against the employment of servants of the gods in Hindu
Temples been uttered; but, as far as the Government are
concerned, it has fallen, if not on deaf ears, on ears stopped
to appeals of this kind, which demand action that can be

250

Mysore

interpreted as a breach of that religious neutrality which is
one of the cardinal principles of British rule in India. The
agitation against it is not the agitation of the European
whose susceptibility is offended at a state of things that he
finds hard to reconcile with the reverence and purity of
Divine worship ; but it is the outcry of the reverent Hindu
against one of the corrupt and degrading practices that, in
the course of centuries, have crept into his religion. In this
particular instance the Mysore Government cannot be accused
of acting hastily. As long ago as February, 1892, they issued
a circular order describing the legitimate services to be per-
formed in Temples by Temple women. In 1899, the Muzrai
Superintendent, Bai Bahadur A. Sreenivasa Charlu, directed
that the Temple women borne on the Nanjangud Temple
establishment should not be allowed to perform tafe (or
dancing) service in the Temple ; but that the allowances
payable to them should be continued for their lifetime, and
that at their death the vacancies should not be filled up.
Against this order the Temple women concerned memorialised
H.H. the Maharajah as long ago as 1905, and the order
disposing of it has only just been issued. In the course of
the latter the Government say : —

" ' From the Shastraic authorities quoted by the two
Agamiks employed in the Muzrai Secretariat, it is observed
that the services to be performed by Temple women form
part and parcel of the worship of the god in Hindu Temples,
and that singing and dancing in the presence of the deity
are also prescribed. It is, however, observed that in the
case of Temple women personal purity and rectitude of
conduct and a vow of celibacy were considered essential.
But the high ideals entertained in ancient days have now
degenerated. . . . The Government now observe that what-
ever may have been the original object of the institution
of Temple women in Temples, the state in which these

251

The Secret Traffic

Temple servants are now found fully justifies the action
taken by them in excluding the Temple women from every
kind of service in sacred institutions like Temples. Further,
the absence of the services of these women in certain
important Temples in the State has become established
for nearly fifteen years past, and the public have become
accustomed to the idea of doing without such services.'

" The exclusion of Temple women from Temple services
obtains in Mysore in the case of a few large Temples whose
Tasdik Pattis have been revised. But the time has come, the
Government think, for its general application, and they
therefore direct that the policy enunciated in the abstract
given above should be extended to all Muzrai Temples in the
State. It is to be hoped that the good example thus set
will bear fruit elsewhere, where the Temple women evil is
more notorious than it was in Temples of Mysore."

A copy of the Government document to which this cutting
relates lies before me. It is bravely and clearly worded, and
its intention is evident. The high-minded Hindu — and there
are such, let it not be forgotten — revolts from the degrada-
tion and pollution of this travesty of religion, and will
abolish it where he can. But let it be remembered that,
good as this laio is, it does not and it cannot touch the
great Secret Traffic itself. That will go on behind the latv,
and behind the next that is made, and the next, unless
measures are devised to ensure its being thoroughly enforced.

Cuttings from newspapers, quotations, evidence — it is not
interesting reading, and yet we look to our friends to
go through to the end with us. Let us pause for a moment
here and remember the purpose of it all ; and may the
thought of some little, loved child make an atmosphere for
these chapters !

252

CHAPTER XXVIII

Blue Book Evidence

CHAPTER XXVIII

Blue Book Evidence

" The precipitous sides of difficult questions." — E. B. B.

OUR first evidence consists of abridged extracts from the
Census Report for 1901. After explaining the dif-
ferent names by which Temple women are known in
different parts of the Madras Presidency, the Report continues :
" The servants of the gods, who subsist by dancing and music
and the practice of 'the oldest profession in the world/ are
partly recruited by admissions and even purchases from other
classes. . . . The rise of the Caste and its euphemistic name
seem to date from the ninth and tenth centuries, during which
much activity prevailed in South India in the matter of build-
ing Temples and elaborating the services held in them. . . .
The duties then, as now, were to fan the idol with Tibetan
ox-tails, to carry the sacred light, and to sing and dance
before the god when he is carried in procession. Inscrip-
tions show that in A.D. 1004 the great Temple of the Chola
king at Tanjore had attached to it four hundred women of
the Temple, who lived in free quarters in the four streets
round it, and were allowed tax-free land out of its endow-
ments. Other Temples had similar arrangements. ... At the
present day they form a regular Caste, having its own laws
of inheritance, its own customs and rules of etiquette, and
its own councils to see that all these are followed, and they

255

Blue Book Evidence

hold a position which is perhaps without a parallel in any
other country. . . .

" The daughters of the Caste who are brought up to follow
the Caste profession are carefully taught dancing and singing,
the art of dressing well, . . . and their success in keeping
up their clientele is largely due to the contrast which they
thus present to the ordinary Hindu housewife, whose ideas
are bounded by the day's dinners and babies."

Closely allied to this Caste is that formed by the Temple
musicians, who with the Temple woman are " now practically
the sole repository of Indian music, the system of which is
probably one of the oldest in the world." In certain districts
the Report states that a custom obtains among certain castes,
under which a family which has no sons must dedicate one
of its daughters to Temple service. The daughter selected is
taken to a Temple and married there to a god, the marriage
symbol being put on her as in a real marriage. Henceforth
she belongs to the god.

Writing in 1904, a member of the Indian Civil Service
says : " I heard of a case of dedication (three girls) at A.
at the beginning of this year, but I could not get any evidence.
The cases very rarely indeed come up officially, as nearly every
Hindu is interested in keeping them dark." We, too, have
had the same difficulty, and the evidence we now submit is
doubly valuable because of its source. It is very rarely that
we have found it possible to get behind the scenes sufficiently
to obtain reliable information from those most concerned in
this traffic.

The head priest of one of our Temples admitted to a
friend who was watching for opportunties to get information
for us that the " marriage to the god is effected privately by
the Temple priest at the Temple woman's house, with the
usual marriage-symbol ceremony. To aviod the Penal Code
(which forbids the marriage of children to gods) a nominal

256

" The Child should be about Eight "

bridegroom is sometimes brought for the wedding day to
become the nominal husband. This Caste is recruited by
secret adoption."

A Temple woman's son, now living the ordinary life apart
from his clan, explains the very early marriage thus : " If
not married, they will not be considered worthy of honour.
Before the children reach the age of ten they must be married.
. . . They become the property of the Temple priests and
worshippers who go to the Temple to chant the sacred
songs."

A Temple woman herself told a friend of ours : " The child
is dressed like a bride, and taken with another girl of the
same community, dressed like a boy in the garb of a bride-
groom. They both go to the Temple and worship the idol.
This ceremony is common, and performed openly in the
streets." In a later letter from the same friend further
details are given : " The child, who should be about eight
or nine years old, goes as if to worship the idol in the
Temple. There the marriage symbol is hidden hi a garland,
and the garland is put over the idol, after which it is taken
to the child's home and put round her neck." After this she
is considered married to the god.

A young Temple woman in a town near Dohnavur told
us she had been given to the Temple when she was five years
old. Her home was in the north country, but she did not
remember it. She had, of course, understood nothing of the
meaning of the ceremony of marriage. She only remembered
the pretty flowers and general rejoicing and pleasure. After-
wards, when she began to understand, she was not happy, but
she gradually got accustomed to it. Her adopted relations
were all the friends she had. She was fond of them and
they of her. Her " husband " was one of the Temple priests.

A Hindu woman known to us left home with her little
daughter and wandered about as an ascetic. She went to a
17 257

Blue Book Evidence

famous Temple, where it is the custom for such as desire to
become ascetics to enter the life by conforming to certain
ceremonies ordained by the priests. She shaved her head,
took off her jewels, wore a Saivite necklet of berries, and
was known as a devotee. She had little knowledge of the
life before she entered it, and only gradually became aware
of the character borne by most of her fellow-devotees.
When she knew, she fled from them and returned to her own
village and the secular life, finding it better than the
religious.

In telling us about it she said : " I expected whiteness, I
found blackness." She told us that she constantly came into
contact with Temple women, none of whom had chosen the
life as she and her fellow-ascetics had chosen theirs. " Always
the one who is to dance before the gods is given to the life
when she is very young. Otherwise she could not be properly
trained. Many babies are brought by their parents and given
to Temple women for the sake of merit. It is very meri-
torious to give a child to the gods. Often the parents are
poor but of good Caste. Always suitable compensation and
a 'joy gift' is given by the Temple women to the parents.
It is an understood custom, and ensures that the child is a
gift, not a loan. The amount depends upon the age and
beauty of the child. If the child is old enough to miss her
mother, she is very carefully watched until she has forgotten
her. Sometimes she is shut up in the back part of the house,
and punished if she runs out into the street. The punishment
is severe enough to frighten the child. Sometimes it is brand-
ing with a hot iron upon a place which does not show, as
under the arm ; sometimes nipping with the nail till the
skin breaks; sometimes a whipping. After the child is
reconciled to her new life, occasionally her people are allowed
to come if they wish ; and in special circumstances she pays
a visit to her old home. But this is rare. If she has been

258

How She is Trained

adopted as an infant, she knows nothing of her own relations,
but thinks of her adopted mother as her own mother. As
soon as she can understand she is taught all evil and trained
to think it is good."

As to her education, the movements of the dance are taught
very early, and the flexible little limbs are rendered more
flexible by a system of massage. In all ways the natural
grace of the child is cultivated and developed, but always
along lines which lead far away from the freedom and inno-
cence of childhood. As it is important she should learn a
great deal of poetry, she is taught to read (and with this
object in view she is sometimes sent to the mission school,
if there is one near her home). The poetry is almost entirely
of a debased character ; and so most insidiously, by story and
allusion, the child's mind is familiarised with sin ; and before
she knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the
instinct which would have been her guide is tampered with
and perverted, till the poor little mind, thus bewildered and
deceived, is incapable of choice.

259

CHAPTER XXIX

"Very Common in those Parts"

CHAPTER XXIX

"Very Common in those Parts"

"The dark enigma of permitted wrong." — F. R. H.

THE mixture of secrecy and openness described by the
Temple woman is confirmed by Hindus well acquainted
with Temple affairs. "All the Temple women are married
to the gods. In former times the marriages were conducted
upon a grand scale, but now they are clandestinely performed
in the Temple, with the connivance of the priest, and with
freedom to deny it if questioned. Some ceremonies are per-
formed in the Temple, the rest at home. Sometimes the
marriage symbol is blessed by the priest, and taken home to
the child to be worn by her. In all these cases the priest
himself has to tie it round her neck. The previous arrange-
ments for the marriage are made by the priests with the
guardians of the child who is to be initiated into the order
of Temple women.

" The ceremony of tying on the marriage symbol is never
in our district performed in public. None but intimate friends
know about it. There is a secret understanding between the
priests and the Temple women concerned. When the time
arrives for the marriage symbol to be tied on, after the usual
ceremonies the priest hands over the symbol hidden in a
garland of flowers.

" Of course, there is music on the occasion. When outsiders

263

" Very Common in those Parts '

ask what all the noise is about, the people who know do not
say the real thing. They say it is a birthday or other festival
day. The symbol is tied on when the child is between five and
eleven, after which it is considered unholy to perform the
marriage ceremony. The symbol is at first hidden from the
gaze of the public. Later it is shown publicly, but not while
the girl is still young."

This tallies exactly with our own experience. More than
once an eager child in her simplicity has shown me the
marriage symbol, a small gold ornament tied round her neck,
or hanging on a fine gold chain ; but the Temple woman in
whose charge she was has always reproved her sharply, and
made her cover it up under her other jewels, or under the
folds of her dress.

The reason for this secrecy, which, however, is not universal,
is, as is inferred in the evidence of the head priest, because it is
known to the Temple authorities that what they are doing is
illegal ; though, as a matter of fact, as will be seen later,
prosecutions are rare, and convictions rarer still.

The Caste is recruited, as the Blue Book states, by " admis-
sions and even purchases from other classes." On this point
a Brahman says : " When the Temple woman has no child, she
adopts a girl or girls, and the children become servants of the
gods. Sometimes children are found who, on account of a vow
made by their parents, become devotees of the gods." Another
Brahman, an orthodox Hindu, writes : " In some districts people
vow that they will dedicate one of their children to the Temple
if they are blessed with a family. Temple women often adopt
orphans, to whom they bequeath their possessions. In most
cases the orphans, are bought."

The position of the Temple woman has been a perplexity to
many. The Census Report touches the question: "It is one
of the many inconsistencies of the Hindu religion, that though
their profession is repeatedly vehemently condemned in the

264

Convictions are Rare

Shastras (sacred books), it has always received the countenance
of the Church." Their duties are all religious. A well-in-
formed Hindu correspondent thus enumerates them : " First
they are to be one of the twenty-one persons who are in
charge of the key of the outer door of the Temple ; second, to
open the outer door daily ; third, to burn camphor, and go
round the idol when worship is being performed ; fourth, to
honour public meetings with their presence ; fifth, to mount
the car and stand near the god during car-festivals." The
orthodox Hindu quoted before remarks on the " high honour,"
as the Temple child is taught to consider it, the marriage to the
god confers upon her.

We have purposely confined ourselves almost entirely to
official and Hindu evidence so far, but cannot forbear to add to
this last word the confirmatory experience of our own Temple
children worker : " When I try to persuade the Hindus to let us
have their little ones instead of giving them to the Temples
they say : ' But to give them to Temples is honour and glory
and merit to us for ever; to give them to you is dishonour
and shame and demerit. So why should we give them to
you?"'

We have said that convictions are rare. This is because of
the great difficulty in obtaining such evidence as is required by
the law as it stands at present. One case may be quoted as
typical. A few years ago, in one of our country towns, a
father gave his child in marriage to the idol "with some
pomp," as the report before us says. He was prosecuted, but
the prosecution failed, for the priest and the parents united in
denying the fact of the marriage ; and the evidence for the
defence was so skilfully cooked that it was found impossible
to prove an offence against the Penal Code.

Once, deeply stirred over the case of a little girl of six who
was about to be married to a god as her elder sisters had been
a few months previously, we wrote to a magistrate of wide

265

" Very Common in those Parts '

experience and proved sympathy with the work. His letter-
speaks for itself : —

"I have been waiting some little time before answering
your letter, because I wanted time to think over your problem.
As far as I can make out, there is no way in the world of pre-
venting a woman marrying her own daughter to the gods at
any age ; but you can prosecute her if she does. If you could
get her into prison for marrying the elder girls, the younger
might be safe ; but I don't think you can do anything directly
for her. She is not being * unlawfully detained ' ; and even if
she were, all you could do would be to get her returned to her
parents and guardians, which would be worse than useless.

"The question is whether you can hope to get a con-
viction in the other case.

"I don't see how you can. You can say in court that
you saw the little girls with their marriage symbol on, and
that they said they had been married to the god. The
little girls will deny it all, and say they never set eyes on
you before. Moreover, I don't think the ordinary Court
would be satisfied without some other evidence of the fact
of dedication ; and considering how everyone would work
against you, I think you would find it extraordinarily hard.
The local police would be worse than useless."

To every man his work : it appears to us that expert
knowledge is required, and ample means and leisure, if the
expenditure involved is to result in anything worth while;
and a careful study of all available information regarding
prosecutions, convictions, and, I may add, sentences, has
convinced us, at least, of the futility of such attempts from
a missionary point of view : for even if convictions were
certain, as long as the law hands the child back to its
guardians after theiv. unfitness to guard it from the worst
that can befall it has been proved, so long do we feel
unable to rejoice exceedingly over even the six months'

266

Ten Years — Six Months

rigorous imprisonment, which in more than one case has
been the legal interpretation of the phrase "up to a term
of ten years," which is the penalty attached to this offence
in the Indian Penal Code.

In this connection it may be well to quote a paragraph
from the Indian Social Reformer: —

"The Public Prosecutor at Madras applied for admission
of a revision petition against the order of the Sessions
Judge, made in the following circumstances : —

"One, S., a priest, was convicted by the first-class sub-
divisional magistrate of having performed the ceremony of
dedicating a young girl in the Temple of N., and thereby
committing an offence punishable under Section 372 of the
Penal Code. He accordingly sentenced him to six months'
rigorous imprisonment. On appeal, the Sessions Judge re-
duced the sentence to two months, on the ground that the
rite complained against was a very common one in those
parts. The Public Prosecutor based his petition on the
ground that it had been held in a previous case ' that
such a dedication was an offence, and that it was highly
desirable that the interests of minors should be properly
protected.' This protection, it was submitted, could only be
vouchsafed by making offending people understand that they
would render themselves liable to heavy punishment. The
present sentence would not have a deterrent effect, and he
accordingly applied for an enhancement of the same. His
lordship admitted the petition, and directed notice to the
accused."

It is something to know the six months' sentence was
confirmed. But is not the fact that a Sessions Judge
should commute such a sentence, on the ground that the
offence was "very common," enough to suggest a doubt as
to the deterrent effect of even this punishment?

267

NOTE

During the last few months the Secretary of State for India
has addressed official inquiries to the Government of India
regarding the dedication of children to Hindu gods, and the
measures necessary for the protection of such children.

If the anticipated change in the law is to result in more
than a Bill on paper — a blind, behind which things will go
on as before only more out of sight — it is, we believe, needful
to ensure :

1st. Protection for all children found to be in moral
danger, whether or not they are or may be dedicated
to gods.

2nd. That, irrespective of nationality or religion, who-
ever has worked for and won the deliverance of the
child should be allowed to act as guardian to it.

3rd. That such a Bill shall be most thoroughly enforced.
February, 191 a.

To face p. «68.

CHAPTER XXX

On the Side of the Oppressors
there was Power

CHAPTER XXX

On the Side of the Oppressors
there was Power

I HAVE been looking over my note-book, in which there
are some hundreds of letters, clippings from news-
papers, and records of conversations bearing upon the
Temple children. It is difficult to know which to choose
to complete the picture already outlined in the preceding
chapters. A mere case record would be wearisome ; and
indeed the very word "case" sounds curiously inappropriate
when one thinks of the nurseries and their little inhabi-
tants ; or looks up to see mischievous eyes watching a
chance to stop the uninteresting writing; or feels, suddenly,
soft arms round one's neck, as a baby, strayed from her
own domain, climbs unexpectedly up from behind and
makes dashes at the typewriter keyboard. Such little
living interruptions are too frequent to allow of these
chapters being anything but human.

The newspaper clippings are usually concerned with
public movements, resolutions, petitions, and the like.
There is one startling little paragraph from a London
paper, dated July 7, 1906 ; the ignorance of the subject
so flippantly dealt with is its only apology. No one could

271

On the Side of the Oppressors

have written so had he understood. The occasion was the
memorial addressed to the Governor in Council by workers
for the children in the Bombay Presidency : — .

"Society must be very select in Poona. There has been
a custom there for young ladies to be married to selected
gods. You would have thought that to be the bride of a
god was a good enough marriage for anyone. But it is
not good enough for Poona." It is time that such writing
became impossible for any Englishman.

In India the feeling of the best men, whether Hindu or
Christian, is strongly against the dedication of little
children to Temples, and some of the newspapers of the
land speak out and say so in unmistakable language. The
Indian Times speaks of the little ones being "steeped deep
from their childhood " in all that is most wrong. A Hindu,
writing in the Epiphany, puts the matter clearly when
he says : " Finally, one can hardly conceive of anything
more debasing than to dedicate innocent little girls to gods
in the name of religion, and then leave them with the
Temple priests " ; and another writer in the same paper
asks a question which those who say that Hinduism is
good enough for India might do well to ponder : " If this
is not a Hindu practice, how can it take place in a Temple
and no priest stop it, though all know? ... In London
religion makes wickedness go away; but in Bombay re-
ligion brings wickedness, and Government has to try to
make it go away." This immense contrast of fact and of
ideal contains our answer to all who would put sin in
India on a level with sin in England.

Christian writers naturally, whether in the Christian
Patriot of the South or the Bombay Guardian of the West,
have no doubt about the existence of the evil or the need for
its removal. They, too, connect it distinctly with religion, and
recognise its tremendous influence.

272

"She Belongs to the god"

But we turn from the printed page, and go straight to the
houses where the little children live. The witnesses now are
missionaries or trusted Indian workers.

" There were thirteen little children in the houses connected
with the Temple last time I visited them. I saw the little baby
— such a dear, fat, laughing little thing. It was impossible
to get it, and I see uo hope of getting any of the other
children."

" When I was visiting in S. a woman came to talk to me with
her three little children. Two of them were girls, very pretty,
' fair ' little children. ' What work does your husband do ? '
I asked ; and she answered, ' I am married to the god.' Then
I knew who she was, and that her children were in danger. I
have tried since to get them, but in vain. Everyone says that
Temple women never give up their little girls. These two
were dedicated at their birth. This is only one instance. We
have many Temple women reading with us, and many of the
little children attend our schools."

" There are not scores but hundreds of these children in the
villages of this district. Here certain families, living ordinary
lives in their own villages, dedicate one of their children as
a matter of course to the gods. They always choose the
prettiest. It is a recognised custom, and no one thinks any-
thing of it. The child so dedicated lives with her parents
afterwards as if nothing had happened, only she may not be
married in the real way. She belongs to the god and his
priests and worshippers."

" The house was very orderly and nice. I sat on the
verandah and talked to the women, who were all well educated
and so attractive with their pretty dress and jewels. They
seemed bright, but, of course, would not show me their real
feelings, and I could only hold surface conversation with
them."

We are often asked if the Temple houses are inside the

18 273

On the Side of the Oppressors

walls which surround all the great Temples in this part of
the country. They are usually in the streets outside. Most
of the Brahman Temples are surrounded by a square of streets,
and the houses are in the square or near it. There is nothing
to distinguish them from other houses in the street. It is only
when you go inside that you feel the difference. An hour on
the shady verandah of one of these houses is very revealing.
You see the children run up to welcome a tall, fine-looking
man, who pats their heads in the kindest way, and as he passes
you recognise him. Next time you see him in the glory of his
office, you wish you could forget where you saw him last.

Sometimes we are asked who the children are. How do
the Temple women get them in the first instance?

We have already answered this question by quotations
from the Census Report, and by statements of Hindus well
acquainted with the subject. It should be added that often
the Temple woman having daughters of her own dedicates
them, and as a rule it is only when she has none that she
adopts other little ones. A few extracts from letters and
notes from conversations are subjoined, as they show how
the system of adoption works : —

" We are in trouble over a little girl, the daughter of
wealthy parents, who have dedicated her to the gods and
refuse to change their mind. The child was ill some time
ago, and they vowed then that if she recovered they would
dedicate her."

" The poor woman's husband was very ill, and the mother
vowed her little girl as an offering if he recovered. He did
recover, and so the child has been given."

"It is the custom of the Caste to dedicate the eldest girl
of a certain chosen family, and nothing will turn them from
it. One child must be given in each generation."

"She is of good caste, but very poor. Her husband died
two months before the baby was born, and as it was a girl

274

" Not Wrong because Religious "

she was much troubled as to its future, for she knew she
would never have enough money to marry it suitably. A
Temple woman heard of the baby, and at once offered to adopt
it. She persuaded the mother by saying: 'You see, if it is
married to the gods, it will never be a widow like you. It
will always be well cared for and have honour, and be a sign
of good fortune to our people — unlike you ! ' (It is considered
a sign of good omen to see a Temple woman the first thing
in the morning ; but the sight of a widow at any time is a
thing to be avoided.) The poor mother could not resist this,
and she has been persuaded."

" The mother is a poor, delicate widow, with several boys
as well as this baby girl. She cannot support them all
properly, and her relatives do not seem inclined to help her.
The Temple women have heard of her, and they sent a woman
to negotiate. The mother knew that we would take the little
one rather than that she should be forced to give it up to
Temple women ; but she said when we talked with her : ' It
cannot be wrong to give it to the holy gods ! This is our
religion; and it may be wrong to you, but it is not wrong
to us.' So she refused to give us the baby, and seems inclined
to go away with it. It is like that constantly. The thing
cannot be wrong because it is religious 1 "

" I heard of two little orphan girls whose guardian, an uncle,
had married again, and did not want to have the marriage
expenses of his two little nieces to see to. So at the last
great festival he brought the children and dedicated them
to the Saivite Temple, and the Temple women heard about
it before I did, and at once secured them. I went as soon
as I could to see if we could not get them, but she would
not listen to us. She said they were her sister's children,
and that she had adopted them out of love for her dead
sister."

A lawyer was consulted as to this case, but it was impos-

275

On the Side of the Oppressors

sible to trace the uncle or to prove -that the children were
not related to the Temple woman. Above all, it was impossible
to prove that she meant to do anything illegal. So nothing
could be done.

As a rule the Temple woman receives little beyond bare
sustenance from the Temple itself. In some Temples when
the little child is formally dedicated, she (or her guardian)
receives two pounds, and her funeral expenses are promised.
But though there is little stated remuneration, the Temple
woman is not poor. Poverty may come. If she breaks the
law of her caste, or offends against the etiquette of that
caste, she is immediately excommunicated, and then she
may become very poor. Or if she has spent her money
freely, or not invested it wisely, her old age may be cheerless
enough. But we have not found any lack of money among
the Sisterhood. No offer of compensation for all expenses
connected with a child has ever drawn them to part with
her. They offer large sums for little ones who will be useful
to them. We have several times known as much as an offer
of one hundred rupees made and accepted in cases where
the little child (in each case a mere infant) was one of
special promise. A letter, which incidentally mentions the
easy circumstances in which many are, may be of interest : —

"K. is a little girl in our mission school. Her mother is
a favourite Temple woman high up in the profession. She
dances while the other women sing, and sometimes she gets
as much as three or four hundred rupees for her dancing. She
is well educated, can recite the ' Ramayana ' (Indian epic), and
knows a little English. She spends some time in her own
house, but is often away visiting other Temples. Just now
she is away, and little K. is with her. . . . Humanly speaking,
she will never let her go."

The education of the mission school is appreciated because
it makes the bright little child still brighter ; and we, who

276

The Pressure Tells

know the home life of these children, are glad when they
are given one brief opportunity to learn what may help
them in the difficult days to come. We have known of
some little ones who, influenced by outside teaching, tried
to escape the life they began to feel was wrong, but in
each case they were overborne, for on the side of the
oppressors there was power. I was in a Temple house
lately, and noticed the doors — the massive iron-bossed doors
are a feature of all well-built Hindu houses of the South.
How could a little child shut up in such a room, with its
door shut, if need be, to the outside inquisitive world — how
could she resist the strength that would force the garland
round her neck ? She might tear it off if she dared, but the
little golden symbol had been hidden under the flowers, and
the priest had blessed it ; the deed was done — she was married
to the god. And only those who have seen the effect of a
few weeks of such a life upon a child, who has struggled in
vain against it, can understand how cowed she may become,
how completely every particle of courage and independence
of spirit may be caused to disappear ; and how what we had
known as a bright, sparkling child, full of the fearless, con-
fiding ways of a child, may become distrustful and constrained,
quite incapable of taking a stand on her own account, or of
responding to any effort we might be able to make from
outside. It is as if the child's spirit were broken, and those
who know what she has gone through cannot wonder if
it is.

And then comes something we dread more : the life begins
to attract. The sense of revolt passes as the will weakens ;
the persistent, steady pressure tells. And when we see her
next, perhaps only three months later, the child has passed
the boundary, and belongs to us no more.

277

CHAPTER XXXI

And there was None to Save

CHAPTER XXXI

And there was None to Save

Thou canst conceive our highest and our lowest
Pulses of nobleness and aches of shame.

FREDERIC W. H. MYERS.

IN speaking of these matters I have tried to keep far
from that which is only sentiment, and have resolutely
banished all imagination. I would that the writing could
be as cold in tone as the criticism of those who consider
everything other than polished ice almost amusing — to judge
by the way they handle it, dismissing it with an airy grace
and a hurting adjective. Would they be quite so cool, we
wonder, if the little wronged girl were their own? But we
do not write for such as these. The thought of the cold eyes
would freeze the thoughts before they formed. We write for
the earnest-hearted, who are not ashamed to confess they care.
And yet we write with reserve even though we write for them,
because nothing else is possible. And this crushing back of
the full tide makes its fulness almost oppressive. It is as
though a flame leaped from the page and scorched the brain
that searched for words quite commonplace and quiet.

The finished product of the Temple system of education
is something so distorted that it cannot be described. But it
should never be forgotten that the thing from which we recoil
did not choose to be fashioned so. It was as wax — a little,

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And there was None to Save

tender, innocent child — in the hands of a wicked power when
the fashioning process began. Let us deal gently with those
who least deserve our blame, and reserve our condemnation
for those responsible for the creation of the Temple woman.
Is it fair that a helpless child, who has never once been given
the choice of any other life, should be held responsible after-
wards for living the life to which alone she has been trained ?
Is it fair to call her by a name which belongs by right to one
who is different, in that her life is self -chosen ? No word can
cut too keenly at the root of this iniquity ; but let us deal
gently with the mishandled flower. Let hard words be
restrained where the woman is concerned. Let it be remem-
bered she is not responsible for being what she is.

In a Canadian book of songs there is a powerful little poem
about an artist who painted one who was beautiful but not
good. He hid all trace of what was ; he painted a babe at her
breast.

I painted her as she might have been
If the "Worst had been the Best.

And a connoisseur came and looked at the picture. To him it
spoke of holiest things ; he thought it a Madonna : —

So I painted a halo round her hair,
And I sold her and took my fee;

And she hangs in the church of St. Hilaire,
Where you and all may see.

Sometimes as we have looked at the face of one whose training
was not complete we have seen as the artist saw : we have
seen her "as she might have been if the worst had been the
best." There was no halo round her hair, only its travesty —
something that told of crowned and glorified sin; and yet we
could catch more than a glimpse of the perfect " might have
been." So we say, let blame fall lightly on the one who least

282

" It Crowns with the Golden Crown '

deserves it. Perhaps if our ears were not so full of the sounds
of the world, we should hear a tenderer judgment pronounced
than man's is likely to be : " Unto the damsel thou shalt do
nothing. . . . For there was none to save her."

Our work at Dohnavur is entirely among the little children
who are innocent of wrong. We rarely touch these lives which
have been stained and spoiled; but we could not forbear to
write a word of clear explanation about them, lest any should
mistake the matter and confuse things that differ.

We leave the subject with relief. Few who have followed
us so far know how much it has cost to lead the way into these
polluted places. Not that we would make much of any personal
cost ; but that we would have it known that nothing save a
pressure which could not be resisted could force us to touch
pitch. And yet why should we shrink from it when the purpose
which compels is the saving of the children? Brave words
written by a brave woman come and help us to do it : —

"This I say emphatically, that the evil which we have
grappled with to save one of our own dear ones does not sully.
It is the evil that we read about in novels and newspapers for
our own amusement ; it is the evil we weakly give way to in
our lives; above all, it is the destroying evil that we have
refused so much as to know about in our absorbing care for
our own alabaster skin ; it is that evil which defiles a woman.
But the evil that we have grappled with in a life and death
struggle to save a soul for whom Christ died does not sully ; it
clothes from head to foot with the white robe, it crowns with
the golden crown."

There remains only one thing more to show. It was
evening in an Indian town at a time of festival. The great
pillared courts of the Temple were filled with worshippers and
pilgrims from all over the Tamil country and from as far north

283

And there was None to Save

as Benares. Men who eagerly grasped at anything printed in
Sanscrit and knew nothing of our vernacular were scattered in
little groups among the crowd, and we had freedom to go to them
and give them what we could, and talk to the many others who
would listen. Outside the moonlight was shining on the dark
pile of the Temple tower, and upon the palms planted along the
wall, which rises in its solid strength 30 feet high and encloses
the whole Temple precincts. There were very few people out in
the moonlight. It was too quiet there for them, too pure in its
silvery whiteness. Inside the hall, with its great-doored rooms
and recesses, there were earth-lights in abundance, flaring
torches, smoking lamps and lanterns. And there was noise —
the noise of words and of wailing Indian music. For up near
the closed doors which open on the shrine within which the idol
sat surrounded by a thousand lights, there was a band of
musicians playing upon stringed instruments ; sometimes they
broke out excitedly and banged their drums and made their
conch-shells blare.

Suddenly there was a tumultuous rush of every produceable
sound ; tom-tom, conch-shell, cymbal, flute, stringed instruments
and bells burst into chorus together. The idol was going to
be carried out from his innermost shrine behind the lights ; and
as the great doors moved slowly, the excitement became intense,
the thrill of it quivered through all the hall and sent a tremor
through the crowd out to the street. But we passed out and
away, and turned into a quiet courtyard known to us and
talked to the women there.

There were three, one the grandmother of the house, one
her daughter, and another a friend. The grandmother and her
daughter were Temple women, the eldest grandchild had been
dedicated only a few months before. There were three more
children, one Mungie, a lovable child of six, one a pretty three-
year-old with a mop of beautiful curls, the youngest a baby
just then asleep in its hammock ; a little foot dangled out of

284

The Harebell Child

the hammock, which was hung from a rafter in the verandah
roof. We had come to talk to the grandmother and mother
about the dear little six-year-old child, and hoped to find their
heart.

But we seemed to talk to stone, hard as the stone of the
Temple tower that rose above the roofs, black against the purity
of the moonlit sky. It was a bitter half -hour. Some hours are
like stabs to remember, or like the pitiless pressing down of an
iron on living flesh. At last we could bear it no longer, and
rose to go. As we left we heard the grandmother turn to her
daughter's friend and say : " Though she heap gold on the floor
as high as Mungie's neck, I would never let her go to those
degraded Christians ! "

Once again it was festival in the white light of the full
moon, and once again we went to the same old Hindu town ; for
moonlight nights are times of opportunity, and the cool of
evening brings strength for more than can be attempted in the
heat of the day. And this time an adopted mother spoke
words that ate like acid into steel as we listened.

Her adopted child is a slip of a girl, slim and light, with the
ways of a shy thing of the woods. She made me think of
a harebell growing all by itself in a rocky place, with stubbly
grass about and a wide sky overhead. She was small and very
sweet, and she slid on to my knee and whispered her lessons
in my ear in the softest of little voices. She had gone to
school for nearly a year, and liked to tell me all she knew.
" Do you go to school now ? " I asked her. She hung her
head and did not answer. " Don't you go ? " I repeated.
She just breathed " No," and the little head dropped lower.
" Why not ? " I whispered as softly. The child hesitated.
Some dim apprehension that the reason would not seem
good to me troubled her, perhaps, for she would not answer.
" Tell the Ammal, silly child ! " said her foster-mother, who
was standing near. " Tell her you are learning to dance and

285

And there was None to Save

sing and get ready for the gods ! " "I am learning to dance
and sing and get ready for the gods," repeated the child
obediently, lifting large, clear eyes to my face for a moment
as if to read what was written there. A group of men stood
near us. I turned to them. " Is it right to give this little
child to a life like that ? " I asked them then. They smiled
a tolerant, kindly smile. "Certainly no one would call it
right, but it is our custom," and they passed on. There was
no sense of the pity of it:—

Poor little life that toddles half an hour,
Crowned with a flower or two, and then an end !

We had come to the town an hour or two earlier, and had
seen, walking through the throng round the Temple, two bright
young girls in white. No girls of their age, except Temple
girls, would have been out at that hour of the evening, and
we followed them home. They stopped when they reached
the house where little Mungie lived, and then, turning, saw
us and salaamed. One of the two was Mungie's elder sister.
Little Mungie ran out to meet her sister, and, seeing us,
eagerly asked for a book. So we stood in the open moon-
light, and the little one tried to spell out the words of a
text to show us she had not forgotten all she had learned,
even though she, too, had been taken from school, and had
to learn pages of poetry and the Temple dances and songs.

The girls were jewelled and crowned with flowers, and they
looked like flowers themselves ; flowers in moonlight have a
mystery about them not perceived in common day, but the
mystery here was something wholly sorrowful. Everything
about the children — they were hardly more than chil-
dren— showed care and refinement of taste. There was no
violent clash of colour; the only vivid colour note was the
rich red of a silk underskirt that showed where the clinging

286

" Now Listen to my Way "

folds of the white gold-embroidered sari were draped a little
at the side. The effect was veiy dainty, and the girls' manners
were modest and gentle. No one who did not know what the
pretty dress meant that night would have dreamed it was but
the mesh of a net made of white and gold.

But with all their pleasant manners it was evident the
two girls looked upon us with a distinct aloofness. They
glanced at us much as a brilliant bird of the air might be
supposed to regard poultry, fowls of the cooped-up yard.
Then they melted into the shadow of an archway behind the
moonlit space, and we went on to another street and came
upon little Sellamal, the harebell child ; and, sitting down on
the verandah which opens off the street, we heard her lessons
as we have told, and got into conversation with her adopted
mother.

We found her interested in listening to what we had
to say about dedicating children to the service of the gods.
She was extremely intelligent, and spoke Tamil such as one
reads in books set for examination. It was easy to talk
with her, for she saw the point of everything at once, and
did not need to have truth broken up small and crumbled
down and illustrated in half a dozen different ways before it
could be understood. But the half-amused smile on the clever
face told us how she regarded all we were saying. What was
life and death earnestness to us was a game of words to her ;
a play the more to be enjoyed because, drawn by the sight
of two Missie Ammals sitting together on the verandah,
quite a little crowd had gathered, and were listening appre-
ciatively.

" That is your way of looking at it ; now listen to my way.
Each land in all the world has its own customs and religion.
Each has that which is best for it. Change, and you invite
confusion and much unpleasantness. Also by changing you
express your ignorance and pride. Why should the child

287

And there was None to Save

presume to greater wisdom than its father ? And now listen
to me ! I will show you the matter from our side ! " (" Yes,
venerable mother, continue ! " interposed the crowd en-
couragingly.) "You seem to feel it a sad thing that little
Sellamal should be trained as we are training her. You
seem to feel it wrong, and almost, perhaps, disgrace. But
if you could see my eldest daughter the centre of a thousand
Brahmans and high-caste Hindus ! If you could see every
eye in that ring fixed upon her, upon her alone ! If you
could see the absorption — hardly do they dare to breathe
lest they should miss a point of her beauty ! Ah, you would
know, could you see it all, upon whose side the glory lies
and upon whose the shame ! Compare that moment of
exaltation with the grovelling life of your Christians ! Low-
minded, flesh - devouring, Christians, discerning not the
difference between clean and unclean ! Bah ! And you
would have my little Sellamal leave all this for that ! "

" But afterwards ? What comes afterwards ? "

" What know I ? What care I ? That is a matter for the
gods."

The child Sellamal listened to this, glancing from face to
face with wistful, wondering eyes ; and as I looked down
upon her she looked up at me, and I looked deep into those
eyes — such innocent eyes. Then something seemed to move
the child, and she held up her face for a kiss.

This is only one Temple town. There are many such in
the South. These things are not easy to look at for long.
We turn away with burning eyes, and only for the children's
sake could we ever look again. For their sake look again.

It was early evening in a home of rest on the hills. A
medical missionary, a woman of wide experience, was talking
to a younger woman about the Temple children. She had
lived for some time, unknowingly, next door to a Temple
house in an Indian city. Night after night she said she was

288

The World turned Black

wakened by the cries of children — frightened cries, indignant
cries, sometimes sharp cries as of pain. She inquired in the
morning, but was always told the children had been punished
for some naughtiness. "They were only being beaten." She
was not satisfied, and tried to find out more through the
police. But she feared the police were bribed to tell nothing,
for she found out nothing through them. Later, by means
of her medical work, she came full upon the truth. . . .
" Why leave spaces with dotted lines ? Why not write the
whole fact ? " wrote one who did not know what she asked.
Once more we repeat it, to write the whole fact is im-
possible.

It is true this is not universal ; in our part of the country
it is not general, for the Temple child is considered of too
much value to be lightly injured. But it is true beyond a
doubt that inhumanity which may not be described is possible
at any time in any Temple house.

Out in the garden little groups of missionaries walked
together and talked. From a room near came the sound
of a hymn. It was peaceful and beautiful everywhere, and
the gold of sunset filled the air, and made the garden a
glory land of radiant wonderful colour. But for one woman
at least the world turned black. Only the thought of the
children nerved her to go on.

CHAPTER XXXII

The Power behind the Work

CHAPTER XXXII

The Power behind the Work

" To Him difficulties are as nothing, and improbabilities of less than
no account." — Story of the China Inland Mission.

THE Power behind the work is the interposition of God
in answer to prayer.
Recently — so recently that it would be unwise to
go into detail — we were in trouble about a little girl of ten
or eleven, who, though not a Temple child, was exposed to
imminent danger, and sorely needed deliverance. I happened
to be alone at Dohnavur at the time, and did not know what
to answer to the child's urgent message : " If I can escape
to you" (this meant if she braved capture and its conse-
quences, and fled across the fields alone at night), "can you
protect me from my people ? " To say " Yes " might have had
fatal results. To say " No " seemed too impossible. The
circumstances were such that great care was needed to avoid
being entangled in legal complications ; and as the Collector
(Chief Magistrate) for our part of the district happened just
then to be in our neighbourhood, I wrote asking for an
appointment. Early next morning we met by the roadside.
I had been up most of the night, and was tired and anxious ;
and I shall never forget the comfort that came through the
quiet sympathy with which one who was quite a stranger to

293

The Power behind the Work

us all listened to the story, not as if it were a mere missionary
trifle, but something worthy his attention. But nothing could
be done. It was not a case where we had any ground for
appeal to the law ; and any attempt upon our part to help
the child could only have resulted in more trouble afterwards,
for we should certainly have had to give her up if she came
to us.

As the inevitableness of this conclusion became more and
more evident to me, it seemed as if a great strong wall were
rising foot by foot between me and that little girl — a wall
like the walls that enclose the Temples here, very high, very
massive. But even Temple walls have doors, and I could not
see any door in this wall. Nothing could bring that child to
us but a Power enthroned above the wall, which could stoop
and lift her over it. I do not remember what led to the
question about what we expected would happen ; but I
remember that with that wall full in view I could only
answer, " The interposition of God." Nothing else, nothing
less, could do anything for that child.

Her case was complicated, if I may express it so, by the
fact that though she knew very little — she had only had a
few weeks' teaching and could not read — she had believed
all we told her most simply and literally, and witnessed to
her own people, whose reply to her had been : " You will see
who is stronger, your God or ours ! Do you think your Lord
Jesus can deliver you from our hand, or prevent us from doing
as we choose with you ? We shall see ! " And the case of an
older girl who had been, as those who knew her best believed,
drugged and then bent to her people's will, was quoted : " Did
your Lord Jesus deliver her ? Where is she to-day ? And you
think He will deliver you ! " " But He will not let you hurt
me," the child had answered fearlessly, though her strength
was weakened even then by thirty hours without food ; and,
remembering one of the Bible stories she had heard during

294

Voices Blown on the Winds

those weeks, she added, " I am Daniel, and you are the lions "
— and she told them how the angel was sent to shut the lions'
mouths. But she knew so little after all, and the bravest can
be overborne, and she was only a little girl ; so our hearts
ached for her as we sent her the message : " You must not try
to come to us. "We cannot protect you. But Jesus is with
you. He will not fail you. He says, 'Fear thou not, for I
am with thee.' " That night they shut her up with a demon-
possessed woman, that the terror of it might shake her faith
in Christ. Next day they hinted that worse would happen
soon. Our fear was lest her faith should fail before deliver-
ance came.

Three and a half months of such tension as we have rarely
known passed over us. Often during that time, when one
thing after another happened contrariwise, as it appeared, and
each event as it occurred seemed to add another foot to the
wall that still grew higher, help to faith came to us through
unexpected sources like voices blown on the winds.

Once it was something Lieut. Shackleton is reported to have
said to Renter's correspondent concerning his expedition to the
South Pole : " Over and over again there were times when no
mortal leadership could have availed us. It was during those
times that we learned that some Power beyond our own
guided our footsteps." And the illustrations which followed
of Divine interposition were such that one at least who
read, took courage ; for the God of the great Ice-fields is
the God of the Tropics.

Once it was a passage opened by chance in a friend's book
— Pastor Agnorum. The subject of the paragraph is the
schoolboy's attitude towards games : " Glimpses of his mind
are sometimes given us, as on that day at Risingham when
you refused to play in your boys' house-match, unless the other
house excluded from their team a half-back who was under
attainder through a recent row. They declined, and you stood

295

The Power behind the Work

out of it. The hush in the field when your orphaned team, in
defiance of the odds, scored and again scored ! Their sup-
porters, in chaste awe at the marvel, could hardly shout : it
was more like a sob : a judgment had so manifestly defended
the right. The cricket professional, a man naturally devout,
looked at me with eyes that confessed an interposition, and all
came away quiet as a crowd from a cemetery. It was not a
game of football we had looked at, it was a Mystery Play : we
had been edified, and we hid it in our hearts."

And once, on the darkest day of all, it was the brave old
family motto, on a letter which came by post : " Dieu defend
le droit." It was something to be reminded that, in spite of
appearances to the contrary, the kingdom is the Lord's, and
He is Governor among the people.

" Eyes that confessed an interposition." The phrase was
illuminated for us when God in very truth interposed in such
fashion that every one saw it was His Hand, for no other
hand could have done it. Then we, too, looked at each other
with eyes that confessed an interposition. We had seen that
which we should never forget ; and until the time comes when
it may be more fully told to the glory of our God, we have hid
it in our hearts.

The reason we have outlined the story is to lead to a
word we want to write very earnestly ; it is this : Friends
who care for the children, and believe this work on their
behalf is something God intends should be done, "pray as
if on that alone hung the issue of the day." More than we
know depends upon our holding on in prayer.

All through those months there was prayer for that child
in India and in England. The matter was so urgent that
we made it widely known, and some at least of those who
heard gave themselves up to prayer; not to the mere easy
prayer which costs little and does less, but to that waiting
upon God which does not rest till it knows it has obtained

296

"I Should utterly have fainted, but-

acceas, knows that it has the petition that it desires of Him.
This sort of prayer costs.

But to us down in the thick of the battle, it was strength
to think of that prayer. We were very weary with hope
deferred ; for it was as if all the human hope in us were
torn out of us, and tossed and buffeted every way till there
was nothing left of it but an aching place where it had
been. God works by means, as we all admit ; and so every
fresh development in a Court case in which the child was
involved, every turn of affairs, where her relatives were
concerned (and these turns were frequent), every little
movement which seemed to promise something, was eagerly
watched in the expectation that in it lay the interposition
for which we waited. But it seemed as if our hopes were
raised only to be dashed lower than ever, till we were cast
upon the bare word of our God. It was given to us then
as perhaps never before to penetrate to the innermost
spring of consolation contained in those very old words : " I
should utterly have fainted, but that I believe verily to see
the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Oh,
tarry thou the Lord's leisure : be strong, and He shall com-
fort thine heart ; and put thou thy trust in the Lord."

This Divine Interposition has been very inspiring. We
feel afresh the force of the question : "Is anything too
hard for the Lord ? " And we ask those whose hearts are
with us to pray for more such manifestations of the Power
that has not passed with the ages. Lord, teach us to pray !

For it has never been with us, " Come, see, and conquer,"
as if victory were an easy thing and a common. We have
known what it is to toil for the salvation of some little life,
and we have known the bitterness of defeat. We have had
to stand on the shore of a dark and boundless sea, and
watch that little white life swept off as by a great black
wave. We have watched it drift further and further out

297

The Power behind the Work

on those desolate waters, till suddenly something from
underneath caught it and sucked it down. And our very
soul has gone out in the cry, " Would God I had died for
thee ! " and we too have gone " to the chamber over the
gate " where we could be alone with our grief and our
God — O little child, loved and lost, would God I had died
for thee !

Should we forget these things? Should we bury them
away lest they hurt some sensitive soul ? Rather, could we
forget them if we would, and dare we hide away the know-
ledge lest somewhere someone should be hurt ? For it is
not as if that black wave's work were a thing of the past :
it has gone on for centuries unchecked : it is going on
to-day.

Several months have passed since the chapters which
precede this were written. We are now, with some of our
converts who needed rest and change, in a place under the
mountains a day's journey from Dohnavur. It is one of
the holy places of the South ; for the northern tributary of
the chief river of this district falls over the cliffs at this
point in a double leap of one hundred and eighty feet, and
the waters are so disposed over a great rounded shoulder
of rock that many people can bathe below in a long single
file. To this fall thousands of pilgrims come from all parts
of India, believing that such bathing is meritorious and
cleanses away all sin. And as they are far from own their
homes, and in measure out on holiday, we find them more
than usually accessible and friendly. This morning I was
on my way home after talk with the women, and was turn-
ing for a moment to look back upon the beautiful sorrowful
scene — the flashing waterfall, the passing crowd of pilgrims,
the radiance of sunshine on water, wood, and rock, when a
Brahman, fresh from bathing, followed my look, and glancing
at the New Testament and bag of Gospels in my hand,

298

Deep Calleth unto Deep

smiled indulgently and asked if we seriously thought these
books and their teaching would ever materially influence
India. " Look at that crowd," and he pointed to the people,
his own caste people chiefly. " Have we been influenced ? "

Then he told me the story of the Falls, how ages ago a
god, pitying the sins and the sufferings of the people, bathed
011 the ledge where the waters leap, and thereafter those
waters were efficacious to the cleansing of sin from the one
who believingly bathes. To the one who believes not, nothing
happens beyond the cleansing of his body and its invigoration.
" Even to you," he added, in his friendliness, " virtue of a sort
is allowed ; for do you not experience a certain exhilaration
and a buoyancy of spirit and a pleasure beyond anything
obtainable elsewhere [which is perfectly true] ? This is due
to the benevolence of our god, whose merits extend even
to you."

He was an educated man ; he had studied in a mission
school, and afterwards in a Government college. He had read
English books, and parts of our Bible were familiar to him.
He assured me he found no more difficulty in accepting this
legend than we did in accepting the story of our Saviour's
incarnation. And then, standing in the Temple porch with its
carved stone pillars, almost within touch of the great door
that opens behind into the shrine, he led the way into the
Higher Hinduism — that mysterious land which lies all around
us in India, but is so seldom shown to us. And I listened till
in turn he was persuaded to listen, and we read together from
the Gospel which transcends in its simplicity the profoundest
reach of Hindu thought : " In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." We did
not pause till we came to the end of the paragraph. I could
see how it appealed, for deep calleth unto deep ; but he rose
again up and up, and that unknown part of one's being which
is more akin to the East than to the West, followed him

299

The Power behind the Work

and understood — when the door behind us creaked, and a
sudden blast of turbulent music sprang out upon us, deafening
us for a moment, and he said, "It is the morning worship.
The priests and the Servants of the gods are worshipping
within." It was like a fall from far-away heights to the very
floc/r of things.

Then he told me how in the town three miles distant, the
Benares of the South, the service of the gods was conducted
with more elaborate ceremonial. " I could arrange for you to
see it if you wished." I explained why I could not wish to see
it, and asked him about the Servants of the gods, and about
the little children. " Certainly there are little children. The
Servants of the gods adopt them to continue the succession.
How else could it be continued ? "

300

CHAPTER XXXIII

If this were All

CHAPTER XXXIII

If this were All

~7W~N hour earlier three of us had stood together by
f\ the pool at the foot of the Falls, and watched the
JLjL. people bathe. At the edge of the rock an old grand-
mother had dealt valiantly with an indignant baby of two,
whom, despite its struggles, she bathed after prolonged
preparation of divers anointings, by holding it grimly,
kicking and slippery though it was, under what must have
seemed to it a terrible hurrying horror. When at last that
baby emerged, it was too crushed in spirit to cry.

Beyond this little domestic scene was a group of half-
reluctant women, longing and yet fearing to venture under
the plunging waters ; and beyond them again were the
bathers, crowding but never jostling each other, on the
narrow ledge upon and over which the Falls descend. Some
were standing upright, with bowed heads, under the strong
chastisement of the nearer heavier fall ; some bent under it,
as if overwhelmed with the thundering thud of its waters.
Some were further on, where the white furies lash like living
whips, and scourge and sting and scurry ; and there the
pilgrims were hardly visible, for the waters swept over them
like a veil, and they looked in their weirdness and mute-
ness like martyr ghosts. Further still some were carefully

303

If this were All

climbing the steps cut into the cliff, or standing as high as
they could go upon an unguarded projection of rock, with
eyes shut and folded hands, entirely oblivious apparently to
the fact that showers of spray enveloped them, and the
deep pool lay below.

I had never seen anything quite like this : it was such a
strange commingling of the beautiful and sorrowful. The
women — " fair "-skinned Brahman women they chanced to
be — were in their usual graceful raiment of silk or cotton,
all shades of soft reds, crimson, purple, blue, lightened with
yellow and orange, which in the water looked like dull fire.
Their golden and silver jewels gleamed in the sunlight, and
their long black hair hung round faces like the faces one
sees in pictures. The men wore their ordinary white, and
the ascetics the salmon-tinted saffron of their profession.

Then, as if to add an ethereal touch to it all, a rainbow
spanned the Falls at that moment, and we saw the pilgrims
through it or arched by it as they stood, some at either end
of the bow where the colours painted the rock and the spray,
and some in the space between. The sun struck the forest
hanging on the steeps above, and it became a vivid thing in
quick delight of greenness. It was something which, once
seen, could hardly be forgotten. The triumphant stream of
white set deep in the heart of a great horseshoe of rock
and woods; the delicate, exquisite pleasure of colour; and the
people in their un-self-consciousness, bathing and worshipping
just as they wished, with for background rock and spray, and
for a halo rainbow. To one who looked with sympathy the
picture was a parable. You could not but see visions : you
could not but dream dreams.

Then from the quiet heights crept a colony of monkeys,
their chatter drowned in the roar of the Falls. On they
came, wise and quaint, like the half -heard whispers of old-
time jokes. And they bathed in the mimic pools above, as

304

Under the Waterfall

it seemed in imitation of the pilgrims, holding comical little
heads under the light trickles.

And below the scene changed as a company of widows
came and entered the Falls. They were all Brahmans and
all old, and they shivered in their poor scanty garments of
coarse white. Most of them were frail with long fasting and
penance, and they prayed as they stood in the water or
crouched under its weight. Such a one had sat on the stone
under the special fall which, as the friend who had taken me
observed with more forcefulness than sentiment, " comes down
like a sack of potatoes." I had tried to stand it for a minute,
but it pelted and pounded me so that less than a minute was
enough, and I moved to make room for a Brahman widow
who was bathing with me. And then she sat down on the
stone, and the waters beat very heavily on the old grey head ;
but she sat on in her patience, her hands covering her face,
and she prayed without one moment's intermission. How
little she knew of the other prayer that rose beside hers
through the rushing water — it was the first time I at least
had ever prayed in a waterfall — " Oh, send forth Thy light
and Thy truth ; let them lead her ! " She struggled up at
last and caught my hand ; then, steadying herself with an
effort, she felt for the iron rod that protects the ledge, and
blinded by the driving spray and benumbed by the beat of
the water, she stumbled slowly out. But the wistful face
had a look of content upon it, and her only concern was to
finish the ceremonial out in the sunshine — she had brought
her little offerings of a few flowers with her — and so, much
as I longed to follow her and tell her of the cleansing of which
this was only a type, it could not have been then. Oh, the
rest it is at such a time to remember that the Lord is good
to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.

Below the pool, in the broad bed of the stream and on
its banks, all was animation and happy simple life. Here
20 305

If this were All

the women were drying their garments, without taking them
off, in a clever fashion of their own. There some were washing
them in the stream. Children played about as they willed.
But in and among the throng, anywhere, everywhere, we
saw worshippers, standing or sitting facing the east, alone
or in company, chanting names for the deity, or adoring
and meditating in silence. Doubtless some were formal
enough, but some were certainly sincere ; and we felt if
this were all there is to know in Hinduism, the time must
soon come when a people so prepared would recognise in
the Saviour and Lover of their souls, Him for whom they
had been seeking so long, "if haply they might feel after
Him and find Him."

But this is not all there is to know. Back out of sight
behind the simple joyousness of life, to which the wholesome
waters and the sparkling air and the beauty everywhere so
graciously ministered, behind that wonderful wealth of
thought as revealed in the Higher Hinduism which is born
surely of nothing less than a longing after God — behind all
this what do we find? Glory of mountain and waterfall,
charm and delight of rainbow in spray ; but what lies behind
the coloured veil? What symbols are carved into the cliff?
Whose name and power do they represent ?

This book touches one of the hidden things ; would that
we could forget it ! Sometimes, through these days as we
sat on the rocks by the waterside, in the unobtrusive fashion
of the Indian religious teacher, who makes no noise but waits
for those who care to come, we have almost forgotten in
the happiness of human touch with the people, the lovable
women and children more especially, that anything dark and
wicked and sad lay so very near. And then, suddenly as we
have told, we have been reminded of it. We may not forget
it if we would. It is true that the thing we mean is disowned
by the spiritual few, but to the multitude it is part of their

306

To-morrow, How will it Be ?

religion. " Of course, Temple women must adopt young chil-
dren ; and they must be carefully trained, or they will not
be meet for the service of the gods." So said the Brahman
who only a moment before had led me into the mystic land,
deep within which he loves to dwell : what does the training
mean?

A fortnight ago the friend to whom the child is dear took
me to see the little girl described in a letter from an Indian
sister as "a little dove in a cage." I did not find that she
minded her cage. The bars have been gilded, the golden
glitter has dazzled the child. She thinks her cage a pretty
place, and she does not beat against its bars as she did in
the earlier days of her captivity. As we talked with her
we understood the change. When first she was taken from
school the woman to whose training her mother has com-
mitted her gave her polluting poetry to read and learn, and
she shrank from it, and would slip her Bible over the open
page and read it instead. But gradually the poetry seemed
less impossible ; the atmosphere in which those vile stories
grew and flourished was all about her ; as she breathed it
day by day she became accustomed to it ; the sense of being
stifled passed. The process of mental acclimatisation is not
yet completed, the lovely little face is still pure and strangely
innocent in its expression ; but there is a change, and it
breaks the heart of the friend who loves her to see it.
"I must learn my poetry. They will be angry if I do not
learn it. What can I do ? " And again, " Oh, the stories
do not mean anything," said with a downward glance,
as if the child-conscience still protested. But this was
a fortnight ago. It is worse with that little girl to-day ;
there is less inward revolt; and to-morrow how will it
be with her?

307

CHAPTER XXXIV

" To Continue the Succession

CHAPTER XXXIV

44 To Continue the Succession

FOB to-morrow holds no hope for these children so far
as our power to save them to-day is concerned. It
will be remembered that we felt we could do more
for them by working quietly on our own lines than by
appealing to the law ; but lately, fearing lesfc we were
possibly doing the law an injustice by taking it for granted
that it was powerless to help us, we carefully gathered all the
evidence we could about three typical children : one a child
in moral danger, though not in actual Temple danger;
another the adopted child of a Temple woman ; the third
a Temple woman's own child : and we submitted this
evidence to a keen Indian Christian barrister, and asked
for his advice.

L., the first child he deals with, the little "dove in the
cage," is in charge of a woman of bad character, by the
consent and arrangement of her mother. The mother
speaks English as well as an Englishwoman, and her eldest
son is studying for his degree in a Government college.
Although Temple service is not intended, the proposed life
is such that a similar course of training as that to which
the Temple child is subjected, is now being carried on. This
is the barrister's reply to my letter : —

311

" To Continue the Succession "

"I have carefully perused the statements of the probable
witnesses. L.'s mother is not a Temple woman, and the
foster-mother also is not a Temple woman. The law of
adoption relating to Temple women does not apply to
them. The foster-mother, therefore, can have no legal claim
to the child. But the mother has absolute control over
the bringing-up of the child, and it would not be possible
in the present state of the law to do anything for the child
now."

S. This is the little one who whispered her texts to me
in the moonlight, and whose foster-mother told her to tell
me she was being trained for the Service of the gods. She
is evidently destined to be a Temple woman. "The first
question for consideration is how the old woman is related
to her. If she is the adopted mother, or if she could suc-
cessfully plead adoption of the child, the Civil Courts will be
powerless to help. If we can get some reliable evidence that
the child has not been adopted " (this is impossible) " we
may be able to induce the British Courts to interfere on
her behalf and say she shall not be devoted to Temple
service until she attains her majority; but it would not be
possible to induce the Courts to hand the child over to the
Mission."

K., the little girl whose own mother is a Temple woman.
She has been taught dancing, which to our mind was con-
clusive proof of her mother's intentions. To make sure we
asked the question, to which the following is the reply : " No
children of [good] Hindu parents are taught dancing. Even
the lowest caste woman thinks it beneath her dignity to
dance, excepting professional devil-dancers, who are generally
old women, mostly widows, of an hysterical temperament.
When young children of women of doubtful character are
taught dancing, it means they are going to be married to
the idol. When children of Temple women are taught

312

" We have no Right to Interfere '

dancing the presumption is all the greater. But the difficulty
in the case of K. is to get one who has higher claims to
guardianship than the mother. In the case of a Temple
woman's child there is no one.

" It is this which makes it impossible for the well-wishers
of the children to interfere. . . . The law punishes only
the offence committed and not the intent to commit, or even
the preparation, unless it amounts to an attempt under the
Penal Code."

Bluebeards are not an institution in England ; but if they
were, and if one of the order were known to possess a cup-
boardf ul of pendent heads, would Englishmen sit quiet while
he whetted his butcher's knife quite calmly on his doorstep ?
Would they say as he sat there in untroubled assurance of
safety, feeling the edge of the blade with his thumb,
and muttering almost audibly the name of his intended
victim, "We have no right to interfere, he is only sharpen-
ing his knife ; an intent to commit, or even the preparation
for crime, is not punishable by law, unless it amounts to an
attempt, and he has not ' attempted ' yet." Surely, if such
intent were not punishable it very soon would be. It would
be found possible — who can doubt it ? — to frame a new law,
or amend the old one, so as to deal with Bluebeards. And
a Committee of Vigilance would be appointed to ensure its
effectual working.

Of course, the simile is absurdly inadequate, and breaks
down at several important points, and the circumstances
are vastly more difficult in India than they ever could be
in England, just because India is India ; but will it not at
least be admitted that the law meant in kindness to the
innocent is fatal to our purpose ? — which is to save the children
while they are still innocent.

313

" To Continue the Succession '

We do not want to ask for anything unreasonable, but
it seems to us that the law concerning adoption requires
revision. In Mayne's Hindu Law and Usage it is stated
that among Temple women it is customary in Madras and
Pondicherry and in Western India to adopt girls to follow
their adopted mother's profession : and the girls so adopted
succeed to their property ; no particular ceremonies are
necessary, recognition alone being sufficient. In Calcutta
and Bombay such adoptions have been held illegal, but in
the Madras Presidency they are held to be legal. In a case
where the validity of such adoption was questioned, the
Madras High Court affirmed it, and it has now, "by a series
of decisions, adopted the rule . . . which limits the illegality
of adoption to cases where they involve the commission of
an offence under the Criminal Code." This, as we have said,
makes it entirely impossible to save the child through the
law before her training is complete ; and after it is complete
it is too late to save her. Train a child from infancy to
look upon a certain line of life as the one and only line for
her, make the prospect attractive, and surround her with
every possible unholy influence ; in short, bend the twig and
keep it bent for the greater part of sixteen years, or even
only six — is there much room for doubt as to how it will
grow ? An heir to the property may be required ; but with
the facts of life before us, can we be content to allow the
adoption of a child by a Temple woman to be so legalised
that even if it can be proved to a moral certainty that
her intention is to "continue the succession," nothing can
be done ?

Then as to the guardianship : again we do not want to
ask too much, but surely if it can be shown that no one
else has moved to save the child (which argues that no one
else has cared much about her salvation) we should not be
disqualified for guardianship on the sole ground that we are

314

What we Want

not related ? In such a case the relatives are the last people
with whom she would be safe. An order may go forth
from that nebulous and distant Impersonality, the British
Government, to the effect that a certain child is not to
be dedicated to gods during her minority. But far away
in their villages the people smile at a simplicity which can
imagine that commands can eventually affect purposes. They
may delay the fulfilment of such purpose ; but India can
afford to wait.

We icould have the law so amended, that whoever has
been in earnest enough about the matter to try to save the
child from destruction, should be given the right to protect
her, if in spite of the odds against him he has honestly
fought through a case and won.

" Is it not a sad thing," writes the Indian barrister — we
quote his words because they seem to us worthy of notice
at home — " that a Christian Government is unable to legislate
to save the children of Temple women? I am sorry my
opinion has made you sad. Giving my opinion as a lawyer,
I could not take an optimistic view of the matter. The law
as it stands at present is against reform in matters of this
kind. Even should a good judge take a strong view of tho
matter, the High Court will stick to the very letter of
the law."

So that, as things are, it comes to this : We must stand
aside and watch the cup of poison being prepared — so openly
prepared that everyone knows for which child it is being
mixed. We must stand and wait and do nothing. We must
see the little girl led up to the cup and persuaded to taste
it. We must watch her gradually growing to like it, for
it is flavoured and sweet. We must not beckon to her before
she has drunk of it and say, " Come to us and we will tell
you what is in that cup, and keep you safely from those
who would make you drink it " ; for " any attempt to induce

315

" To Continue the Succession '

the child to come to you, or any assistance given to help
her to escape to you, would render you liable to prosecution
for kidnapping — a criminal offence under the Penal Code."
Any one of us would gladly go to prison if it would save
the child ; but the trouble is, it would not : for the law
could only return her to her lawful guardians from whose
hold we unlawfully detached her. We, not they, would be
in the wrong ; they did nothing unlawful in only preparing
the cup. Does someone say that we put the case unfairly
—that the law does not forbid us to warn the child, it only
forbids us to snatch her away when the cup is merely being
offered her? But remember, in our part of India at least,
these cups are not given in public. The preparation is public
enough, the bare tasting is public too ; but the cup in its
fulness is given in private, and once given, the poison works
with stealthy but startling rapidity. Warn the child before
she has drunk of it, and she does not understand you.
Warn her after she has drunk, and the poison holds her
from heeding.

Besides, to be very practical, what is the use of warning
if we may only warn ? Suppose our one isolated word weighs
with the child against the word of mother or adopted mother,
and all who stand for home to her ; suppose she says (she
would very rarely have the courage for any such proposal,
but suppose she does say it) : " May I come to you ? and will
you show me the way, for it is such a long way and I do not
know how to find it ? I should be so frightened, alone in the
night " (the only time escape would be possible), " for I know
they would run after me, and they can run faster than I ! "
What may we say to her ? What may I say to the Harebell
supposing she asks me this question ? She is only six, and
there are six long miles over broken country between her
home and ours. We could not find it ourselves in the dark.
But supposing she dared it all, and an angel were sent to

316

Then unto Thee we Turn

guide her, have we any right to protect her ? None whatever.
If there are parents, or a parent, they or she have the right
of parentage ; if an adopted mother, the right of adoption. *

We know that the law is framed to protect the good,
and the rights of parentage cannot be too carefully guarded ;
but to one who has not a legal mind, but only sees a little
girl in danger of her life, and has to stand with hands tied
by a law intended to deal with totally different matters, it
seems strange that things should be so. This is not the
moment (if ever there is such a moment) to choose, for deli-
berate lawlessness ; but there are times when the temptation
is strong to break the law in the hope that, once broken, it
may be amended. Only those who have had to go through
it know what it is to stand and see that cup of poison being
prepared for an unsuspicious child.

The last sentence in the barrister's letter begins with "I
despair." The sentence is too pungent in its outspoken
candour to copy into a book which may come back to India :
" I despair " : then unto Thee we turn, O Lord our God ; for
now, Lord, what is our hope? truly our hope is even in Thee :
oh, help us against the enemy; for vain is the help of man.
Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Will the Lord absent
Himself for ever? O God, wherefore art Thou absent from
us for so long? Look upon the Covenant, for all the earth
is full of darkness and cruel habitations. Surely Thou hast
seen it, for Thou beholdest ungodliness and wrong. The
wicked boasteth of his heart's desire. He sitteth in the
lurking-places of the villages : in the secret places doth he
murder the innocent. He saith in his heart, "God hath
forgotten : He hideth His face ; He will never see it." Arise,

* To-day (February 16, 1912) as I go through proofs of the second edition,
I hear by post of a young girl in a distant city who lately escaped to a missionary,
and asked for what he could not give her — protection. She had to return to her
own home. In her despair, she drowned herself.

317

" To Continue the Succession "

O Lord God, lift up Thine hand ! Up, Lord, disappoint him,
and cast him down ; deliver the children ! Show Thy mar-
vellous lovingkindness, Thou that art the Saviour of them
which put their trust in Thee, from such as resist Thy right
hand. Thy voice is mighty in operation : the voice of tho
Lord is a glorious voice. We wait for Thy lovingkindness,
O God : be merciful unto the children : O God, be merciful
unto the children, for our soul trusteth in Thee, and we call
unto the Most High God, even unto the God that shall per-
form the cause which we have in hand. For Thou hast looked
down from Thy sanctuary ; out of heaven did the Lord behold
the earth, that He might hear the mournings of such as are
in captivity, and deliver the children appointed to death.
Arise, O God, maintain Thine own cause ! Our hope is in
Thee, Who helpeth them to right that suffer wrong. The
Lord looseth the prisoners. God is unto us a God of deliver-
ances. Power belongeth unto Thee. Our soul hangeth upon
Thee : Thou shalt show us wonderful things in Thy righteous-
ness, O God of our salvation, Thou that art the hope of all
the ends of the earth. And all men that see it shall say,
This hath God done ; for they shall perceive that it is His
work. He shall deliver the children's souls from falsehood
and wrong ; for God is our King of old ; the help that is
done upon earth He doeth it Himself. Sure I am, the Lord
will avenge the poor, and maintain the cause of the helpless.
Why art thou so heavy, O my soul, and why art thou dis-
quieted within me ? Oh, put thy trust in God ; for I will
yet praise Him which is the help of my countenance and
my God !

Are there any prayers like the old psalms in their intense
sincerity ? In the times when our heart is wounded within us
we turn to these ancient human cries, and we find what we
want in them.

Let us pray for the children of this generation being trained

318

Let us Pray

now " to continue the succession," whom nothing less than a
Divine interposition can save. The hunters on these mountains
dig pits to ensnare the poor wild beasts, and they cover them
warily with leaves and grass : this sentence about the succes-
sion is just such a pit, with words for leaves and grass. Let
us pray for miracles to happen where individual children are
concerned, that the little feet in their ignorance may be
hindered from running across those pits, for the fall is into
miry clay, and the sides of the pit are slippery and very
steep.

More and more as we go on, and learn our utter inability
to move a single pebble by ourselves, and the mighty power
of God to upturn mountains with a touch, we realise how
infinitely important it is to know how to pray. There is the
restful prayer of committal to which the immediate answer
is peace. We could not live without this sort of prayer ; we
should be crushed and overborne, and give up broken-hearted
if it were not for that peace. But the Apostle speaks of
another prayer that is wrestle, conflict, " agony:" And if
these little children are to be delivered and protected after
their deliverance, and trained that if the Lord tarry and
life's fierce battle has to be fought — and for them it may be
very fierce — all that will be attempted against them shall
fall harmless at their feet like arrows turned to feather-
down; then some of us must be strong to meet the powers
that will combat every inch of the field with us, and some
of us must learn deeper things than we know yet about the
solemn secret of prevailing prayer.

319

CHAPTER XXXV

What if she misses her Chance ?

CHAPTER XXXV

What if she misses her Chance ?

" Who would be planted chooseth not the soil
Or here or there, ...
Lord even BO
I ask one prayer,
The which if it be granted
It skills not where
Thou plantest me, only I would be planted."

T. E. BROWN.

TWO pictures of two evenings rise as I write. One is of
an English fireside in a country house. The lamps have
been lighted, and the curtains drawn. The air is full
of the undefined scent of chrysanthemums, and the stronger
sweetness of hyacinths comes from a stand in the window.
Curled up in a roomy arm-chair by the fire sits a girl with a
kitten asleep on her lap. She is reading a missionary book.
The other this : a white carved cupola in the centre of a
piece of water enclosed by white walls. People are sitting on
the walls and pressing close about them in their thousands.
A gorgeous barge is floating slowly round the shrine. There
is very little moon, but the whole place is alight ; sometimes
the water is ablaze with ruby and amber ; this fades, and a
weird blue-green shimmers across the barge, and electric
lamps at the corners of the square lend brilliancy to the
scene. The barge is covered with crimson trappings, and
hundreds of wreaths of white oleander hang curtain-wise
round what is within — the god and goddess decked with
jewels and smothered in flowers. Round and round the
barge is poled, and in the coloured light all that is gaudy and
tawdry is toned, and becomes only oriental and impressive ;
and the white shrine in the centre reflected in the calm

323

What if she misses her Chance?

coloured water appears in its alternating dimness, and shining
more like a fairy creation than common handiwork.

We who were at the festival, three of us laden with
packets of marked Gospels, met sometimes as we wandered
about unobserved, losing ourselves in the crowd, that we
might the more quietly continue that for which we were
there ; and in one such chance meeting we spoke of the
English girl by the fireside, and longed to show her what we
saw ; and to show it with such earnestness that she would be
drawn to inquire where her Master had most need of her.
But no earnestness of writing can do much after all. It is
true the eye affects the heart, and we would show what we
have seen in the hope that even the second-hand sight might
do something ; but words are clumsy, and cannot discover to
another that poignant thing the eye has power to transmit to
the heart. And it is well that it is so, for something stronger
and more consuming than human emotion can ever be must
operate upon the heart if the life is to be moved to purpose.
" A moving story " is worth little if it only moves the feelings.
How far out of its selfish track does it move the life into
ways of sacrifice ? That is the question that matters. What
if it cost ? Did not Calvary cost ? Away with the cold,
calculating love that talks to itself about cost! God give
us a pure passion of love that knows nothing of hesitation
and grudging, and measuring, nothing of compromise ! What
if it seem impossible to face all that surrender may mean ?
Is there not provision for the impossible ? " In the Old Testa-
ment we find that in almost every case of people being
clothed with the Spirit it was for things which were impossible
to them. To be filled with the Spirit means readiness for
Him to take us out of our present sphere and put us anywhere
away from our own choice into His choice for us." These
words hold a message alike for us as we meet and pass in

324

All the Way"

that Indian crowd, and for the girl by the fireside at home
who wants to know her Lord's will that she may do it,
and whose heart's prayer is : " May Thy grace, O Lord, make
that possible to me which is impossible by nature."

Let us have done with limitations, let us be simply
sincere. How ashamed we shall be by and by of our
insincerities : —

Thy vows are on me, oh to serve Thee truly,

Pants, pants my soul to perfectly obey !
Burn, burn, 0 Fire, 0 Wind, now winnow throughly 1
Constrain, inspire to follow all the way I
Oh that in me
Thou, my Lord, may see
Of the travail of Thy soul,
And be satisfied.

We had only a few hours to spend in the town of the
Floating Festival ; and being anxious to discover how things
were among the Temple community, I spent the first hour
in their quarter, a block of substantial buildings each in its
own compound, near the Temple. I saw the house from
which two of our dearest children came, delivered by a
miracle ; it looked like a fortress with its wall all round, and
upstairs balcony barred by a trellis. The street door was
locked as the women were at the Festival. In another of
less dignified appearance I saw a pretty woman of about
twenty, dressed in pale blue and gold, evidently just ready
to go out. One of those abandoned beings whose function
it is to secure little children " to continue the succession "
was in the house, and so nothing could be attempted but
the most casual conversation. All the other houses in the
block were locked as the women were out; but I saw a
new house outside, built in best Indian style, and finely
finished. It had been built for, and given as a free gift, to
a noted Temple woman.

325

What if she misses her Chance?

These houses would open, in the missionary sense of the
word, but not in an afternoon. It would take time and
careful endeavour to win an entrance. Such a worker would
need to be one whom no disappointment could discourage,
a woman to whom the word had been spoken, " Go, love, . . .
according to the love of the Lord." When will such a worker
come ?

As I left the Temple quarter I met my two companions
who had been at work elsewhere, and we walked together
to the place of festival. Tripping gaily along in front was
a little maid with flowers in her hair. It was easy to
know who she was, there was something in the very step
that marked the light-footed Temple child. Poor little all-
unconscious illustration of India's need of God !

Later on we saw the same illustration again, lighted up
like a great transparency, the focus for a thousand eyes.
For on the dai's of the barge, in the place of honour
nearest the idols, stood three women and a child. The
women were swathed in fold upon fold of rich violet silk,
sprinkled all over with tinsel and gold ; they were crowned
with white flowers, wreathed round a golden ornament like
a full moon set in their dark hair ; and the effect of the
whole, seen in the luminous flush of colour thrown upon
them from the shore, was as if the night sky sparkling
with stars had come down and robed them where they
stood. Then when it paled, and sheet-lightning played, as
it seemed, across water and barge and shrine, the effect was
wholly mysterious. The three swaying forms — for they
swayed keeping time to the music that never ceased—
resembled one's idea of goddesses rather than familiar
womenkind. To the Indian mind it was beautiful, bewil-
deringly beautiful ; and the simple country-folk around drew
deep breaths of admiration as they passed.

The little girl looked more human. She too was in violet

326

That Little Child!

silk and spangles and gold, and her little head was wreathed
with flowers. It may have been her first Floating Festival,
for she gazed about her with eyes full of guileless wonder,
and the woman beside whom she stood laid a light, protecting
hand upon her shoulder.

That little child ! How the sight of her held us in pity as
the bargo sailed slowly round. She was so near to us at times
that we could almost have touched her when the barge came
near the wall ; and yet she was utterly remote, miles of space
might have lain between ; it was as if we and she belonged to
different planets. And yet our little ones who might have
been as she, were so close — we could almost feel their loving
little arms round our necks at that moment — this child, how
far away she was ! Had one of us set foot on the place where
she stood, the friendly thousands about us would have changed
in a second into indignant furies, and so long as the memory
of such impiety remained no white face would have been
welcome at the Floating Festival.

We stood by the wall awhile and watched ; the sorrow of it
all sank into us. There in the holiest place of all, according to
their thinking, close to the emblems of deity, they had set
this grievous perversion of the holy and the pure. Right on
the topmost pinnacle of everything known as religious there
they had enthroned it, and robed it in starlight and crowned
it as queens are crowned. " Oh, worship the Lord in the
beauty of holiness ! " " One thing have I desired of the
Lord ... to behold the fair beauty of the Lord " — such
words open chasms of contrast. God pity them ; like those
of old, they know not what they do.

We came away, our books all sold and our strength of
voice spent out, for everywhere people had listened; and as
we came home, strong thanksgiving filled our hearts, thanks
and praise unspeakable for the little lives safe in our nursery,
for the two especially who but for God's interposition might

327

What if she misses her Chance?

have been on ;that barge — and oh, from the ground of our
heart we were grateful that He had not let us miss His will
concerning these little children. We thought of those special
two with their dear little innocent ways. We could not think
of them on the barge. We could not bear to think of it — again
and again we thanked God, with humble adoring thanksgiving,
that He kept us from missing our chance.

But the mere thinking of that intolerable thought brought
us back upon another thought. What of that girl by the fire-
side ? What if she misses her chance ? We know, for letters
confess it, that many a life has missed its chance. What of
the woman, strong and keen, with pent-up energies waiting for
she knows not what ? What of the girl by the fireside crushing
down the sense of an Under-call that will not let her rest?
The work to which that Call would lead her will not be any-
thing great : it will only mean little humble everyday doings
wherever she is sent. But if the Call is a true Call from heaven,
it will change to a song as she obeys ; and through all the
afterward of life, through all the loneliness that may come,
through all the disillusions when her " dreams of fair romance
which no day brings " slip away from her — and the usual and
commonplace are all about her — then and for ever that song of
the Lord will sing itself through the quiet places of her soul,
and she will be sure — with the sureness that is just pure
peace — that she is where her Master meant her to be.

Not that we would write as if obedience must always mean
service in the foreign field. We know it is not so : we know it
may be quite the opposite ; but shall we not be forgiven if we
sometimes wonder how it is that with so much earnest Church
life at home, with so many evangelistic campaigns, and con-
ventions, there is so poor an output so far as these lauds
abroad are concerned ? Can it be that so many are meant to
stay at home ? We would never urge any individual friend to
come, far less would we plead for numbers, however great the

328

" This I wish to do, this I Desire '

need ; we would only say this : Will the girl by the fireside, if
such a one reads this book, lay the book aside, and spend an
hour alone with her Lord ? Will she, if she is in doubt about
His will, wait upon Him to show it to her ? Will she ask Him
to fit her to obey? " And this I wish to do, this I desire; what-
soever is wanting in me, do Thou, I beseech Thee, vouchsafe
to supply."

Forgive if we seem to intrude upon holy ground, but some-
times we see in imagination some great gathering of God's
people, and we hear them singing hymns ; and sometimes the
beautiful words change into others not beautiful, but only
insistent : —

The Lord our God arouse us I We are sleeping,
Dreaming we wake, while through the heavy night

Hardly perceived, the foe moves on unchallenged,
Glad of the dream that doth delay the fight.

0 Christ our Captain, lead us out to battle I
Shame on the sloth of soldiers of the light I

Good Shepherd, Jesus, pitiful and tender,

To whom the least of straying lambs is known,

Grant us Thy love that wearieth not, nor faileth ;
Grant us to seek Thy wayward sheep that roam

Far on the fell, until we find and fold them

Safe in the love of Thee, their own true home.

329

CHAPTER XXXVI

Thy Sweet Original Joy"

CHAPTER XXXVI

" Thy Sweet Original Joy "

Beacons of hope, ye appear I
Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow.

WITHIN the last few months a friend, a lover of books,
sent me The Trial and Death of Socrates, trans-
lated into English by F. J. Church. Opening it for
the first time, I came upon this passage : —

Socrates : " Does a man who is in training, and who is in
earnest about it, attend to the praise and blame of all men,
or of the one man who is doctor or trainer?"

Crito : " He attends only to the opinion of the one man."

Socrates : " Then he ought to fear the blame and welcome
the praise of the one man, not the many?"

Crito: "Clearly."

And Socrates sums the argument thus : " To be brief ; is
it not the same in everything?"

Surely the wise man spoke the truth : it is the same in
everything. The one thing that matters is the opinion of
the One. If He is satisfied, all is well. If He is dissatisfied,
the commendation of the many is as froth. " Blessed are the
single-hearted, for they shall have much peace."

But Nature is full of pictures of bright companionship in

333

" Thy Sweet Original Joy '

service ; the very stars shine in constellations. This book of
the skies has been opening up to us of late. Who, to whom
the experience is new, will forget the first evenings spent with
even a small telescope, but powerful enough to distinguish
double stars and unveil nebulae? You look and see a single
point of light, and you look again and twin suns float like
globes of fire on a midnight sea ; and sometimes one flashes
golden yellow and the other blue, each the complement of the
other, like two perfectly responsive friends. You look and see
a little lonely cloud, a breath of transparent mist ; you look
and see spaces sprinkled with diamond dust, or something even
more awesome, reaches of radiance that seem to lie on the
borderland of Eternity.

And the shining glory lingers and lights up the common
day, for the story of the sky is the story of life.

Far was the Call, and farther as I followed
Grew there a silence round my Lord and me —

is for ever the inner story, as for ever the stars must move
alone, however close they are set in constellations or strewn
in clusters ; but in another sense is it not true that there is the
joy of companionship and the pure inspiration of comrade-
ship ? God fits twin souls together like twin suns ; and some-
times, with delicate thought for even the sensitive pleasure of
colour, it is as if He arranged them so that the gold and the
blue coalesce.

And we think of the places which were once blank, mere
misty nothings to us. They sparkle now with friends. Some
of them are familiar friends known through the wear and tear
of life ; some we shall never see till we meet above the stars.
And there the nebula speaks its word of mystery beyond
mystery, but all illuminated by the light from the other side.

In the work of which these chapters have told there has
been the wonderful comfort of sympathy and help from

334

Another Compelling Influence

fellow-missionaries of our own and sister missions ; and, as
all who have read, understand, nothing could have been done
without the loyal co-operation of our Indian fellow-workers
whose tenderness and patience can never be described. We
think of the friends in the mission houses along the route of
our long journeyings ; we remember how no hour was too
inconvenient to receive us and our tired baby travellers ; we
think of those who in weariness and painfulness have sought
for the little Children ; and we think of those who have made
the work possible by being God's good Ravens to us. We think
of them all, and we wish their names could be written on the
cover of this book instead of the name least worthy to be
there. And now latest and nearest comfort and blessing,
there are the two new " Sitties," whose first day with us made
them one of us. What shall I render unto the Lord for all
His benefits towards me?

The future is full of problems. Even now in these Nursery
days questions are asked that are more easily asked than
answered. We should be afraid if we looked too far ahead,
so we do not look. We spend our strength on the day's work,
the nearest " next thing " to our hands. But we would be
blind and heedless if we made no provision for the future.
We want to gather and lay up in store against that difficult
time (should it ever come) a band of friends for the children,
who will stand by them in prayer.

There has been another compelling influence. We recog-
nise something in the Temple-children question which touches
a wider issue than the personal or missionary. Those who
have read Queen Victoria's Letters must have become con-
scious of a certain enlargement. Questions become great or
dwindle into nothingness according as they affect the honour
and the good of the Empire. We find ourselves instinctively
" thinking Imperially," regarding things from the Throne
side — from above instead of from below.

335

" Thy Sweet Original Joy "

We fear exaggerated language. We would not exaggerate
the importance of these little children or their cause. We
have said that we realise, as we did not when first this
work began, how very delicate and difficult a matter it
would be for Government to take any really effective action,
and less than effective action is useless. We recognise the
value of our pledge of neutrality in religious matters, and
we know what might happen if Government moved in a
line which to India might appear to be contrary to the
spirit of that pledge. It would be far better if India
herself led the way and declared, as England declared when
she passed the Industrial Schools Amendment Act of 1880, that
she will not have her little children demoralised in either
Temple houses recognised as such, or in any similar houses,
such as those which abound in areas where the Temple child
nominally is non-existent. But must we wait till India leads
the way ? Scattered all over the land there are men who are
against this iniquity, and would surely be in favour of such
legislation as would make for its destruction. But few would
assert that the people as a whole are even nearly ready. A
great wave of the Power of God, a great national turning
towards Him, would, we know, sweep the iniquity out of the
land as the waters of the Alpheus swept the stable-valley
clean, in the old classic story. Oh for such a sudden flow
of the River of God, which is full of water ! But must we
wait until it comes ? Did we wait until India herself asked
for the abolition of suttee ? Surely what is needed is such
legislation as has been found necessary at home, which
empowers the magistrate to remove a child from a dan-
gerous house, and deprives parents of all parental rights
who are found responsible for its being forced into wrong.
Surely such action would be Imperially right; and can a
thing right in itself and carried out with a wise earnest-
ness, ever eventually do harm? Must it not do good in the

336

But

end, however agitating the immediate result may appear?
Surely the one calm answer, " It is Right" will eventually
silence all protest and still all turbulence!

Such a law, it is well to understand at the outset, will
always be infinitely more difficult to enforce in India than
in England, because of the immensely greater difficulty here
in getting true evidence ; and because — unless that River of
God flow through the land — there will be for many a year
the force of public opinion as a whole against us, or if not
actively against, then inert and valueless. Caste feeling will
come in and shield and circumvent and get behind the law.
The Indian sensitiveness concerning Custom will be all
awake and tingling with a hidden but intense vitality ; and
this, which is inevitable because natural, will have to be
taken into account in every attempt made to enforce the
law. The whole situation bristles with difficulties ; but are
difficulties an argument for doing nothing?

" Whoever buys hires or otherwise obtains possession of,
whoever sells lets to hire or otherwise disposes of any minor
under sixteen with the intent that such minor shall be
employed or used for . . . any unlawful purpose or knowing
it likely that such minor will be employed or used for any
such purpose shall be liable to imprisonment up to a term
of ten years and is also liable to a fine."

But where it appeared that certain minor girls were
being taught singing and dancing and were being made to
accompany their grandmother and Temple woman to the
Temple with a view to qualify them as Temple women, it
was held that this did not amount to a disposal of the
minors within the meaning of the section.

Ought this interpretation of the Indian Penal Code to
be possible? The proof the law requires at present, proof
of the sale of the child or its definite dedication to the idol,
is rarely obtainable. The fact that it is being taught singing

22 337

"Thy Sweet Original Joy"

and dancing (although it is well known, as the barrister's
letter proves, that among orthodox Hindus such arts are
never taught to little children except when the intention is
bad) is not considered sufficient evidence upon which to base
a conviction. To us it seems that the presence of the child
in such a house, or in any house of known bad character,
is sufficient proof that it is in danger of the worst wrong
that can be inflicted upon a defenceless child — the demoralisa-
tion of its soul, the spoiling of its whole future life, before it
has ever had a chance to know and choose the good.

And so we write it finally as our solemn conviction that
there is need for a law like our own English law, and we
add — and those who know India know how true this sentence
is — such legislation, however carefully framed, will be a
delusion, a blind, a dead letter, unless men of no ordinary
insight and courage and character are appointed to see that
it is carried out.

God grant that these chapters, written in weakness, may
yet do something towards moving the Church to such prayer
that the answer will be, as once before, that an angel will
be sent to open the doors of the prison-house!

The frontispiece shows the rock to which we go some-
times when we feel the need of a climb and a blow. It is
associated in our minds with a story : — " Between the passages
by which Jonathan sought to go over unto the Philistines'
"garrison there was a sharp rock on the one side and a
sharp rock on the other side. . . . And Jonathan said to the
young man that bare his armour : ' Come and let us go
over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised : it may be
that the Lord will work for us: for there is no restraint
to the Lord to save by many or by few.' And his armour-
bearer said unto him: 'Do all that is in thine heart: turn
thee, behold I am with thee according to thy heart.'"

We have a rock to climb, and there is nothing the least

338

From the Rock, Dohnavur.

" So God maketh His Precious Opal

romantic about it. We shall have to climb it " upon our hands
and upon our feet." It is all grim earnest. " We make our way
wrapped in glamour to the Supreme Good, the summit," writes
Guido Rey, the mountaineer, in the joy of his heart. But later
it is : " One precipice fell away at my feet, and another rose
above me. ... It was no place for singing." Friends, we shall
come to such places on the Matterhorn of life. As we follow the
Gleam wherever it leads, may we count upon the upholding of
those for whom we have written — the lovers of little children ?

And now, in conclusion, all I would say has already
been so perfectly said, that I cannot do better than copy
from the writings of two who fought a good fight and have
been crowned — Miss Ellice Hopkins, brave, sensitive, soldier-
soul on the hardest of life's battlefields ; and George Herbert,
courtier, poet, and saint. " Often in that nameless discourage-
ment," wrote Miss Hopkins, as she lay slowly dying, "before
unfinished tasks, unfulfilled aims and broken efforts, I have
thought of how the creative Word has fashioned the opal,
made it of the same stuff as desert sands, mere silica — not a
crystallised stone like the diamond, but rather a stone with a
broken heart, traversed by hundreds of small fissures which let
in the air, the breath, as the Spirit is called in the Greek of our
Testament; and through those two transparent mediums of
such different density it is enabled to refract the light, and
reflect every lovely hue of heaven, while at its heart burns a
mysterious spot of fire. When we feel, therefore, as I have
often done, nothing but cracks and desert dust, we can say : So
God maketh His precious opal ! "

We would never willingly disguise one fraction of the truth
in our desire to win sympathy and true co-operation. There
will be hours of nameless discouragement for all who climb the
rock. For some there will be the " broken heart."

And yet there is a joy that is worth it all a thousand times
— well worth it all. Who that has known it will doubt it?

339

"Thy Sweet Original Joy'

This reach of water recalls it. The palms, as we look at them,
seem to lift their heads in solemn consciousness of it. For the
water-side — where we stand with those for whom we have
travailed in soul, when for the first time they publicly confess
their faith in Christ — is a sacred place to us.

Has our story wandered sometimes into sorrowful ways ?
To be true it has to be sorrowful sometimes. We look back to
the day of its beginning, the day that our first little Temple
child came and opened a new door to us.

Since that time many a bitter storm
My soul hath felt, e'en able to destroy,
Had the malicious and ill-meaning harm

His swing and sway ;
But still Thy sweet original joy
Sprung from Thine eye did work within my soul,
And surging griefs when they grew bold control,

And got the day.

It is true. Many a bitter storm has come ; there have been the
shock and the darkness of new knowledge of evil, and grief
beside which all other pain pales, the grief of helplessness in the
face of unspeakable wrong. But still, above and within, and
around, like an atmosphere, like a fountain, there has been
something bright, even that " sweet original joy " which
nothing can darken or quench.

If Thy first glance so powerful be

A mirth but opened and sealed up again,

"What wonders shall we feel when we shall see

Thy full-orbed love I
When Thou shalt look us out of pain,
And one aspect of Thine spend in delight,
More than a thousand worlds' disburse in light

In heaven above 1

And not alone, oh, not alone, shall we see Him as He is !
There will be the little children too.

O
td

td
X

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MORGAN AND SCOTT'S

REVIVAL SERIES OF BOOKLETS

W. H. HARDING,

Editor of the Complete Edition of Finney's Lectures on Revival.

ONE PENNY EACH.

I. Billy Bray.
II. Charles G. Finney.

III. The Ulster Revival.

IV. Richard Weaver.
V. D. L. Moody.

VI. Duncan Matheson.
VII. The Seventh Earl of Shaftes-
bury.

VIII. John MacGregor and Gawin

Kirkham.
IX. James Turner.
X. Ira D. Sankey.
XI. Brownlow North.
XII. Henry Moorhouse.
XIII. William Chalmers Burns.
XIV. Robert Murray M'Cheyne.

TYPICAL REVIEWS

" To read such records with the tale of as many as 2,000 seekers in one meeting,
' amidst weeping and supplication,' is to make one long again for such days as the '59
Eevival." — Bright Words.

" These Booklets should be spread broadcast, and they will stir up the Evangelical
fervour of Christians." — Methodist Times.

" Mr. Harding has done his work well, and in spite of the necessity for condensing
considerable volumes into sixteen pages, has managed to seize upon the salient points in
each stirring story, and to set them forth in a living and interesting fashion." — Sword
and Trowel.

MORGAN & SCOTT LD., 12, Paternoster Buildings, London, E.G.

CARDIPHONIA : The Utterance of the Heart.

A Handsome Edition of JOHN NEWTON'S delightful Letters. With an Appreciation by
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" They are the heart-speech of one who rested upon the finished work of Christ, and
are full of genuine beauty. They were written 130 years ago, but the message of the
heart is eternal, when it rests upon eternal truth, as these letters do. Print, paper,
and binding make the book cheap ; its message is of untold value." — Montrose Standard.

" These letters reveal an intimate acquaintance with the perennial needs of the human
heart, and a sure conviction that Jesus Christ is the answer to all human need. Such
letters never grow old ; and they can be earnestly recommended to all those who to-day
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THE RETURNING KING.

By BET. J. H. TOWNSEND, D.D. Choicely Bound in White Leatherette, Gilt Top,
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" A message which will bring comfort to hearts weighed down by the defections of our
time, and will be valued as a guide to the consideration of Scriptural teaching about the
things that are to come." — The Christian.

THE STUDY OF THE MIRACLES: An Examination of
the Miracles of the Old and New Testaments.

By ADA B. HABEBSHON. Cloth, 6s.

" The work reveals great intellectual industry and power of analysis and effective
arrangement, and the spirit pervading the author's treatment of an undeniably difficult
subject is one of deep religious earnestness. The book will be found genuinely illuminating
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" Gives evidence of extensive reading and patient labour. There are elaborate
appendices containing curious tables, the preparation of which must have taxed the
authoress very severely. The whole is done in a devout spirit, and many useful practical
lessons are drawn." — Primitive Methodist Leader.

THE TABERNACLE AND ITS TEACHING.
By BEV. WILFRED M. HOPKINS. Cloth, 3s. 6d. net (post free, 3s. 10d.).

" It is unquestionably the most instructive unfolding of the significance of the
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THE BOOKS WE ALL WRITE.

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MORGAN & SCOTT LD., 12, Paternoster Buildings, London, E.G.

BY PHILIP MAURO.

THE WORLD AND ITS GOD.

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The volume is written from the standpoint of one who, after having been for upwards
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chapters) of Genesis as a literal and accurate description of historic events.

LIFE IN THE WORD.

22nd Thousand. Paper, 6d. ; Cloth Boards, Is.

In these pages Mr. Mauro declares the Bible to be the Living Word of the Living God ;
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points out that, while other books pass away, the Bible, owing to its Divine Origin, lives,
and will never pass away.

41 An able and earnest plea for the authority of the Bible as a living Book. This little book
has a distinct mission of its own."— The Churchman,

MAN'S DAY.

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"It has a message all its own, and not least for those invincible optimists who are wilfully
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THE NUMBER OF MAN: The Climax of Civilization.

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v.idely apart command our admiration."— Western Mail.

REASON TO REVELATION.

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A note of special interest applies to this work as being Mr. Mauro's first effort as a
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A TESTIMONY, AND OTHER WRITINGS.

Cloth, Is.

CONTENTS. — A Testimony ; The Present State of the Crops ; Modern Philosophy ;
The Foundations of Faith ; The Characteristics of the Age ; Eternal Eelationships.

BOOKLETS BY PHILIP MAURO.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. An Address. 3d. (post

free, 3Jd.).

CONCERNING SPIRITUAL GIFTS-ESPECTALLY TONGUES. 2d. (post free, 2Jd.).
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MODERN PHILOSOPHY : A Menace to the English-speaking Nations. 3d. (post free, 3Jd.).
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BY LETTICE BELL.

BIBLE BOYS.

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graphic."— Vanibay Guardian.

Miss EMILY HUNTLEY, the well-known Sunday School Union Lecturer, writes : " I have very
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GO-TO-BED STORIES.

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to STAY trp and read them."— Rev. Harrington C. Lees.

WHY AND WHAT AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

For the big family of little " Why's " who have been, are going, and cannot go, to the
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is. 9d.|. Paper Covers, Is. net (post free, Is. 3d.).

" The British Museum is rather a dull place for most boys and girls, but if they read this
book, or, better still, if their parents read it to them, they will come to the conclusion that it is
very far from being a ' stupid old place, full of stupid old broken bits,' as one boy described it.
The book is full of information told in an interesting fashion, and will well repay reading.
We commend it to our readers both old and young."— Regions Beyond.

BY GEORGE E. MORGAN. M.A.

WHILE WE'RE YOUNG : Talks with Young People.

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MARSHALL BI^MHALL, Esq., B.A., Editorial Secretary of the China Inland Mission, says:
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think necessary and the children essential, it may well be called a success, and this is what Mr.
George Morgan's book, ' While We're Young,' does. After reading twenty-odd pages, our eight-
year-old daughter was reluctant »o put it down, her exclamations being warmly eulogistic."

IN SCHOOL AND PLAYGROUND. Five-Minute Talks with
Young People.
Cloth Boards, Is.

LOBD OvERTOtiN Bays : " Its illustrations are homely, pointed, and helpful, and I am sure it
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BY FORBES JACKSON. M.A.

TWILIGHT TALES ABOUT BOYS AND GIRLS.

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A delightful series of happy informal talks with young people. Many of the boys and
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our own day. Wholesome and useful lessons are pointed with singular charm and
felicity. No one can fail to be fascinated by the author's vivacious style and the
wonderful freshness of his message.

MORGAN & SCOTT LD., 12, Paternoster Buildings, London, B.C.

FINE ART CHRISTMAS CARDS,
CALENDARS & MOTTOES.

To put within the reach of Christian Workers, Mission Leaders, Sunday School

Teachers, &c.,

A UNIQUE SERIES

of Christmas and New Year Cards of a

DISTINCTLY ARTISTIC CHARACTER

combined with exquisite production and exceptional value, has been the aim of the

publishers of the

CHRISTIAN SERIES

for some years past, and undoubtedly one of the outstanding features of this series
is the beautiful reproduction of

ORIGINAL OIL PAINTINGS

NIELS HANS CHRISTIANSEN.
Amongst the many and varied studies by this clever artist will be found

SCOTCH MOUNTAIN SCENERY,

SUNSETS IN MID-WINTER,

NORWEGIAN FIORDS.

ENGLISH LANDSCAPES.

RIVER AND MEADOW SCENES, ETC.

All these studies reproduced in full colours are now published in the

CHRISTIAN SERIES OF CHRISTMAS CARDS, CALENDARS,
AND MOTTO CARDS.

To be had of all Booksellers and Stationers.

MORGAN & SCOTT LD.t 12, Paternoster Buildings, London, EC

NEW SACRED MUSIC.

SACRED SONGS. Each Is. 6d. net cash.

How SWEET THE NAME. By Lewis

Carey.

BEST. By Noel Johnson.
THE WELCOME. By Noel Johnson.
IT PASSETH KNOWLEDGE. By

A. Hallam Simpson.

MOST AT HOME AMONG THE ANGELS. BY

Reginald F. Barclay.
0 MIGHTY BREATH OF GOD. By Reginald

F. Barclay.
THE SONG OF REDEMPTION. By Reginald

F. Barclay.

AN ALBUM OF SIX SACRED SONGS. By NOEL JOHNSON. In Art
Covers. 3s. net cash.

I. THERE is NO NIGHT IN HEAVBN.
H. IN THE LAND OF STRANGERS.
HI. MY FAITH LOOKS DP TO THEE.

IV. FAB FBOM MY HEAVENLY HOME.
V. JUST AS I AM.
VI. CHANGE is OUB PORTION HERE.

MODERN FESTIVAL MUSIC.

A Series of New and Original Compositions for Singing Festivals, Flower Services,
Sunday-school Anniversaries, or other occasions. Books 1, 2, 3, and 4, each con-
taining Twelve Songs, either Old Notation or Tonic Sol-fa, 6d. ; Words only,
2s. 6d. per 100. Separate numbers, Id. each.

LORD OF THE HARVEST, THEE WE HAIL.

A Hymn-Anthem for Harvest. Composed by HUGH BUCKLEY. 3d.

I WILL OPEN RIVERS IN HIGH PLACES.

An Anthem for Harvest. Composed by HUGH BUCKLEY. Price 3d,

DROP DOWN, YE HEAVENS.

An Anthem for Harvest and other occasions. Composed by E. MABKHAM LEE. 3d.

I WILL MAGNIFY THEE.

An Anthem for Harvest Festivals and other occasions.
SIMPSON. 3d.

Composed by A. HALLAM

SPECIAL HYMNS AND PSALMS FOR THE HARVEST.

A Selection of Twenty-three Hymns and Psalms for Harvest Festivals. Music and
Words, containing Tunes and Chants for all the Words. 4d. Words only,
2s. 6d. per 100.

CAROLS ANCIENT AND MODERN— CHRISTMAS.

Comprising a number of Breton and Flemish Carols never before published in this
country, and several new compositions, including contributions by Sir C. VILLIERS
STANFORD and other Modern Composers. Books, each containing about Twelve
Carols, 6d. ; Words only, 2s. 6d. per 100. Separate Carols, Id. and 2d. each.

CAROLS ANCIENT AND MODERN— EASTER.

A Series of Twelve Carols of the Resurrection. Music and Words, 6d. ; Words
only, 2s. 6d. per 100.

MORGAN AND SCOTT'S HYMN SHEETS for every kird of Meeting, from 6d. per 100.
Large variety to choose from : : : : Full List with Specimens post free.

MORGAN & SCOTT LD., 12, Paternoster Buildings, London, E.G.

EVERY THURSDAY. ONE PENNY'

Christian:

WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED "THE REVIVAL."

Christian is a paper with a purpose. Its watchword is " First Things First " ; and

it seeks to instruct and encourage Evangelical believers, regardless of denomina-

tional distinctions.
CljrtStian is a weekly record of Christian Life and Testimony, Evangelistic Effort

and Missionary Enterprise. It endeavours to unite, not to divide — to speak of

faith and hope in the terms of LOVE.
CJjtistian is a welcome visitor in thousands of homes every week ; and its message

is true to the Gospel, confirmatory of the Faith. In other words, its pages give

no hospitality to doubt and unbelief.
dJtlBttail affords help and guidance to workers in many spheres and countries.

Missionaries and ministers, teachers and visitors, at home and abroad, look to ita

pages for encouragement and instruction, also for intelligence as to the progress

of the Gospel cause throughout the world.

WHAT OUR READERS SAY.

" For twenty-nine years the writer has taken and read, with no little profit, the pages of

f)£ (ftfjrigtian. He is delighted to see that in the midst of so much distressing disturb-
ance in matters theological you have never swerved from the simplicity of the Gospel, nor
forsaken the old paths. How far-reaching the good your publication has effected, only
' that day ' will reveal."

"The news from the mission fields, whether at home or abroad, the Bible studies, the
contributions so helpful yet with the freshness of an English May morning — rail combine
to render your paper unique amongst the vast number of excellent periodicals and
weeklies now published."

" I believe you have but an imperfect idea of what valuable testimony and service,
upbuilding of saints, and bringing sinners to Christ, your weekly message accomplishes."

" It is greatly appreciated — living, as I do, at the most southern extremity of civiliza-
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those to whom it is passed on."

" For over thirty years we have taken &f)e dfjristt'an, and are very glad it takes such a
brave stand for ' the truth as it is in Jesus." "

"It certainly is the best pennyworth that ever I knew for the sound, helpful teaching
by the different writers."

THE YOUNG PEOPLE have a department to themselves conducted by
" Uncle Tom " ; and their hearty appreciation of the Weekly Bible- Searching
Exercises is shown by the fact that in each number of the paper there appear
the names of over sixteen hundred young people who have forwarded correct
answers to the Scripture questions.

Cfiriflttan may be ordered in advance at Is. 8d. for three months, 3s. 3d. for six
months, or at 6s. 6d. per annum, at home or abroad.

MORGAN & SCOTT LD., 12, Paternoster Buildings, London, E.G.

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